


Lost With You (Might Be All I Need)

by ann2who



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Infinity War (Movie), Camping, Civil War Fix-It, Dimension Travel, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Making Up, No character bashing, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-10-24 07:04:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10736613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ann2who/pseuds/ann2who
Summary: Tony and Steve fall through a portal just after defeating Thanos and his army. Stranded in another dimension, the two have to finally face what happened—and what could have been.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a ton to my beta-readers [morphia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/morphia/pseuds/morphia) (Thank you so much for using your little free time on this!! <3) and [captainstarkreportingforduty](http://captainstarkreportingforduty.tumblr.com/) (<3).
> 
> This fic is already mostly finished, so I'll post regularly. It'll be 5 chapters in total. There will be no post-civil war character bashing whatsoever, this author loves Steve and Tony equally :)

“Steve! Now!” Natasha yelled, giving away Steve’s location, but his super soldier speed still got him to Thanos before the warlord could react. Vision, Strange and Wanda were commandeering the Infinity Stones together, and there were rifts in the sky—portals opening—goddamn everywhere. Time and space were collapsing and in the midst of all the chaos, Steve reached the battered form of Thanos, and managed to hold him still with both of his hands.

Tony had reached the landing platform as well and was running towards Steve. Steve yanked the Infinity Gauntlet out of his back holder and flung it to him. They certainly didn’t need the gauntlet to kill Thanos—but it sure would be a lot cathartic. Tony whirled around and with a perfectly timed shot he catapulted it through the air—right into Thanos’ chest. Letting go of the body, Steve let Thanos fall right over the tower’s edge and stared after him.

After days, weeks,  _ months _ —it was over.

Well, ‘over’ was a relative thing. The whole structure of Tony’s tower was swaying precariously in the wind and lightning bolts of the storm all around them. Thanos’ army had done a number on New York, and the former Avengers Tower especially. The fiber of their universe was still tearing apart, and the building wouldn’t withstand it any longer.

“Are you alright?” Tony shouted to Natasha, who lay on the ground next to him.

Natasha nodded, her eyes wide. She had a bad cut that stretched all over her abdomen and bruises all over her face.

“Can you move?” Steve demanded.

Natasha shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

The tower quaked again, swaying violently. They all caught at struts to stay on their feet.

“We’ve got to get to the ground. It’s going to collapse,” Tony shouted. They could all hear the metal complaining as the tower swayed and bolts and struts started to wrench apart. “Suit’s power is down. I can only carry one at a time.”

Steve stared down at Natasha, and there was really no decision to be made here.

“Nat first!” Steve yelled over the wind and helped her stand up.

A beat passed. Iron Man’s eyes were staring at him, then the faceplate opened. Tony’s face was ashen and sweaty, his expression serious.

“I’ll come back for you,” he promised as he pulled Natasha into his arms.

“I know,” Steve replied, because no matter how much Tony might still hate him, this was something Steve knew. Tony would never leave him here to die.

Tony nodded, a jerky little thing, then swung the two of them over the edge of the platform, just as a bolt of lightning struck, so close that Steve felt the hairs on his left arm crisp.

Well. At least he’d be going down knowing that the world would see a new day.

There was a grating sound, and in a matter of seconds, Steve was down on the metal as the whole top of the tower swayed violently, metal screeching, then tilted sideways.

It was strange, but in that moment—even as it all came to an end—all Steve could do was think how sad it was that the tower would be destroyed—all these rooms he’d come to call ‘home’, at least for a while. He’d been happy here. Once.

The top of the tower tilted even further and Steve found himself looking down at New York. There were fires everywhere, smoke rising from the buildings nearby, and then, a couple of hundred feet below, a thin, burning, white line suddenly broke open in the air just below him. It started to widen quickly, radiating incandescent white light.

_ Another portal _ , Steve realized, then gasped as Tony suddenly flung himself towards him from seemingly out of nowhere. He tried to fly them both off and away, but in that moment, the roof of the tower was coming towards them, smashing right into Tony’s suit. Steve caught at a large strut with one hand as Tony grabbed the collar of Steve’s uniform with the other, keeping them both from sliding right off the platform.

“Hold on to me!” Tony yelled as they skidded towards the rift. The portal got bigger and bigger, swallowing them slowly.

“Don’t let go,” Tony hissed, when it was clear that they wouldn’t be getting away. His faceplate was still open as his brown eyes bore into Steve’s. He clung to him, or maybe Steve clung to the Iron Man armor, it was hard to know who was gripping whom, because right in that second, the whole top of the tower broke away and fell into the portal forming beneath them.

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” a voice called. “Hey, wake up, will you?”

Steve slowly opened his eyes. Around him was a sea of color. Yellows, oranges, and reds.

He didn’t remember the world being so red.

Eventually he spotted Tony bending over him, still in the Iron Man armor, his face worried. It was a view that normally would have Steve confused, having Tony concerned about him. It wasn’t something they did these days. Worry about the other. But Steve’s head felt like it was splitting apart and he couldn’t quite be bothered about anything else.

“Oh God,” he murmured as memory came back. “We fell through a portal.”

“Really,” Tony huffed, as his gaze flickered sideways. “And here I thought they just decided to plant a billion goddamn trees in the city.”

A flash came back out of his confused memories—a line of white light widening. “Bruce said they’re leading to other dimensions—Thanos’ doing. Where are we?”

“That’s the one hundred dollar question,” Tony said, sighing.

Steve climbed shakily to his feet and looked around. His shield was lying a few meters away on the red ground and they were in a large meadow next to a river. There were red and brown trees all around and when Steve turned around, he realized that the remains of the tower, or what was left of its top floors, lay broken and shattered at the far side of the clearing. As Steve’s eyes turned to the skyline, he stilled. A hazy curtain of yellow, accented with rolling, pregnant storm clouds and a few rumbles of thunder. There was a sharp, cutting wind whistling past them.

Where  _ were _ they?

“Didn’t you say he forced the dimensions to bleed together?” Steve asked, confused. “That there would be chaos and—”

“When the portals closed, the dimensions got separated again,” Tony explained, standing up from where he had been kneeling beside Steve. “That’s my wild guess, at least.”

Momentarily, Steve’s eyes flickered over the Iron Man suit. It was very clearly not functioning; there were scratches and dents, the arc reactor was dark, and Tony seemed to have a hard time moving.

“We need to find a way to get back,” Steve ventured, looking at the sky. There was no chaos, but the environment looked anything but friendly.

“Neither you or I are any good with magic,” Tony said. His jaw clenched as he looked at the remains of his tower. “And I don’t exactly have the supplies to get us back, unless we find my workshop around here.”

“Maybe the team’s already working on getting us back. At least I hope so. Guess we’ll just have to wait.” Steve swayed on his feet a little. “Damn, I’m a bit woozy. Are you feeling alright?”

“No,” Tony said, and not much else. He took a step back, the Iron Man armor whirring a little, a clear sign that it wasn’t functioning quite right.

Steve’s eyes flickered to the sickly yellow sky with its ominous clouds once more as he searched for words. Being stranded here with Tony was… going to be interesting, to say the least. They still weren’t really on speaking terms, Tony tolerated him at best, and whenever they could, they kept their distance. There was no way to truly understand the tortuous ins and outs of their complicated non-relationship.

So what should he do now? Tell Tony, ‘We tried to kill each other. I kept secrets from you. You currently think I’m not much better than a dung beetle. But let’s just be friends for a few days, okay?’.

Yeah, right.

Tony kept looking around, as if the endless row of trees were holding the secrets to the universe. Then he sank to the ground, rubbing a gloved hand over his face.

“Tony?” Steve prompted and got waved off immediately.

“It’s fine,” Tony ground out, clearly frustrated with himself and the whole situation.

In times like these, Steve usually turned around and let Tony sort himself out. He wouldn’t be listening to anything Steve had to say either way, so he was trusting on Rhodes or Vision or Peter to force Tony to go to medical check-up. This time, however, there was no one else here to do that job.

Clenching his jaw, Steve walked closer, noticing how Tony kept curling in on himself, even as he very obviously tried not to.

“Tony,” he said again, more forcefully this time.

Tony took a hissing breath, his mouth forming an angry smile. “I have… I can’t see straight, and something hit me before we passed the barrier of the portal.” He practically forced the words out, and once he was finished, he let himself drop on the grass fully, his arms shaking.

Cautiously, Steve walked closer. With upraised hands, he gestured to Tony’s head, and after a long beat, Tony nodded. Steve reached out to tilt Tony’s head from side to side. He knew how to retract the helmet, pressing both his thumbs into the little circular holes next to the helmet’s neck. He hesitated for a second before actually touching his fingers to Tony’s skin, but Tony didn’t draw back, so he figured it was okay.

“Doesn’t look like you got hit in the head,” Steve said. “Maybe falling through the portal did something. Lot of energy crackling through there. Maybe it got to you.”

“If you say so.”

“You’re taking it pretty well,” Steve mused, eyeing Tony up.

Tony shrugged, looking tense. “To be honest, I did my share of cursing before you woke up,” he said wryly.

Steve tried for a smile that hopefully looked encouraging and didn’t show any of the panic he was currently feeling. “Fair enough. Don’t worry, I’m sure the others will find us soon.”

Tony nodded, tensely. “I hope you’re right.”

“Just have to wait it out. Make the best of what we have here. Looks like we got water, and there should be something edible in the forest—it could be worse.”

Tony looked around, and Steve knew what he was thinking. The trees, the sky, even the smell of the air—it all felt a bit off.

Steve gestured towards the armor. “I think you should get out of this,” he said. “You said something hit you. We should check for injuries.”

“I’m good,” Tony said, shaking his head.

Steve gave a long-suffering sigh as he glanced up to the sky once more. It looked like it was going to rain fairly soon. Then he tried catching Tony’s eyes. “Humor me,” he said at last. “Please.”

Tony stayed silent, staring at the ground. Just when Steve was about to add, ‘It’s not even working anymore, don’t be so goddamn stubborn’, Tony pressed down on some opening in the breastplate, the suit disassembling immediately.

Tony staggered slightly and Steve put a steadying hand on his shoulder, keeping him upright. He grimaced when he spotted the red stains on Tony’s undersuit. The gray overall-like suit clung to his body, obviously a bit moist with sweat, but over Tony’s abdomen, the cloth was torn, the skin beneath scratched and bleeding.

“Shit,” Tony managed to say, his eyes large. “I didn’t…” He trailed off, wincing right then. “Yeah okay, I feel it now.”

“Lie down,” Steve commanded and helped Tony drop down on his back. He hesitated to touch the zipper at the front. “Can I—”

Tony rolled his eyes, and nodded, though he was clearly uncomfortable with the situation.

Steve slowly opened the zipper and pulled the undersuit down, baring Tony’s chest. His eyes momentarily paused on the circular scar on Tony’s sternum. In that moment, Steve couldn’t put into words how much of a relief it was that Tony didn’t have the arc reactor anymore. He didn’t want to think what he would’ve done had it not survived the fall.

Staring down at the fairly large scar Steve had never really seen before, it was hard to believe that the arc reactor had once been embedded right in Tony’s chest. Or that Tony had survived all of that in the first place.

Steve was mesmerized by the steady heartbeat beneath Tony’s skin and it took a moment for him to roll the cloth further down. The wounds were just below and next to Tony’s navel, and Steve exhaled a sigh of relief when he saw that it were just a few scrapes and cuts and a bit of a hematoma. It had bled quite a bit, but it already clotted and it didn’t look infected either. It was probably best just to leave it alone for the time being.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he told Tony, surprised at how deep his relief went. “Looks worse than it is. Try not to move too much for a while.”

Tony nodded, looking a bit lost as he lay there with his chest bared.

Steve stood up, then helped him back to his feet.

“So what are we going to do now?” Tony asked.

“Wait it out,” Steve offered. “The others will be looking for us. Might take a few days. But I don’t think we have any other option. I for one don’t have a clue how to open that portal.”

Tony tilted his chin at where the remains of the tower top and platform lay at the edge of the meadow, half-buried in the earth and crushing a few trees and bushes beneath them. Parts of the former Avengers logo lay broken on the ground. The mangled metal looked completely incongruous in the setting of meadow and woodlands all around. “The portal must’ve closed right behind us. The tower broke apart just when we fell, so the roof fell through with us. We should scan the remains later, see if we can find anything worthwhile.” Tony’s eyes moved over the forest that encircled them once more. “Nothing but trees as far as the eye can see. Dammit.”

“The eye can’t see very far though,” Steve pointed out, then he had an idea. “Let me see whether I can find out what’s around us.”

With that, he stood up, headed for the tallest tree that he could find and began to climb.

“Nothing but trees in all directions,” he said when he was back on the ground again. “No roads, trails, houses, billboards, phone lines, whatnot. No sign of human presence at all. Even a village in the Dark Ages would have fields around it and smoke from cooking fires. Wherever we are, it’s far away from human habitation. It would take us at least a week to walk to anywhere.”

“And you don’t think that’s a good idea,” Tony said, questioning. He was pulling his undersuit back over his shoulders, wincing only a little as he closed the zipper again.

“Well, I’m out of my depths here too,” Steve said. “But I don’t think we should leave this place. If the portal opens again, it’ll most likely be right here. The others would never find us if we leave. We need to stay within sight of this meadow.” He looked around. “As I said, we’ve got water here. Wood for a fire and shelter. All we need is food.”

“I’m not exactly an outdoors-kind-of-guy,” Tony murmured. “Not sure I know how to hunt.”

Steve was about to follow up with an, ‘Oh you don’t say’, but bit his tongue before the words could come out.

Instead, he said, “Forgot how you once tracked that slime monster through Central Park? It was barely visible and you killed it before any of us even managed to get a trail.”

Tony huffed, the ghost of a smile teasing his lips. “Right. I forgot about those. I think I showered for three hours after that.”

“And that’s nothing compared to—”

“Clint throwing up fourteen times,” Tony finished, and now he did smile. “God, I forgot. When was that?”

“2014,” Steve said, smiling as well. They stayed like that for a moment, before Tony seemingly checked himself, and slowly shuffled towards the tower’s remains. He leaned down, lifting a smaller metal strut to the side.

Steve’s brows furrowed, and he wanted to remind Tony badly not to exert himself too much, but he knew it wouldn’t be welcome.

“I’ll go hunting after we get set up a fire,” Steve called after him. “I’ll get the firewood and tinder first.”

Finding a couple of dry branches was easy and it didn’t take long for Steve to gather everything they’d need, his arms full with not only firewood, but also thick wood logs. By the time he got back, Tony had a firepit dug lined with rocks.

It was obvious Tony wanted to comment on the show of strength, but eventually decided against it. “Nice,” he said instead. “More out there if we need it?”

“Tons. Don’t suppose you got a pack of matches, do you?” he asked. “A lighter’d work, too,” he said, though more to himself. “Think I had one in my belt, but I lost it during the fight.”

“Nope, sorry,” Tony said, but instead of waiting for Steve to do something, he stood up. He retracted something from the Iron Man armor—a knife of sorts—then walked towards the wood logs Steve had dropped on the ground. Steve could practically see the gears in his head turning. Tony cut a notch into a flat piece of wood and then started twirling a thin stick, fast and faster still, until sparks started to set the tinder around aflame.

“Boy scout,” Steve said, earning himself an eye roll and not much else.

After Tony had gotten the fire going, he reached sideways to the armor that lay beside him. “I found a few things that’d be helpful for setting up camp. If it turns out we’re stranded here for much longer, I’ll dig more into it—I’m sure we could find a few things in my penthouse.”

There was a solid metal strut from the tower and two more pieces of metal loose, one flattened and the other with a sharpish edge.

“Shovel and axe,” he explained at Steve’s inquiring look. “Not optimal, but they’ll work with a bit of strength behind them. That’s where you come in.”

Steve nodded. “What are you planning?”

“I’m making us a shelter,” Tony explained. “Gonna build a lean-to using the platform of the tower as one wall. It’s leaning nicely as it is. Just have to add another side to it. We could use a few more logs in that size.” He pointed towards the bigger logs. As he spoke, Steve didn’t miss how Tony’s fingers automatically moved to the center of his chest, rubbing the skin there. It was likely muscle memory, something he’d often seen Tony do.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Steve said, and took the makeshift axe in hand, busying himself with cutting several logs to the same size.

Of course Tony would immediately set out to make this easier on them. He always did that, whether it was with his money or his own genius—he’d always, without any complaints—spent all of his resources on helping each of them.

Something in Steve’s gut turned painfully at the thought.

In the end, it barely took Tony half an hour to align the logs next to the platform, covering both them and the grating of the platform with smaller branches and twigs as a layer of insulation. Heaped pine boughs made a halfway decent bed inside.

“It’s amazing,” Steve remarked as he looked at their work and he really meant it. The shelter looked sturdy, angled against the platform in a way that should keep both the cold and the rain out as best as possible. “I wouldn’t have known how to do that.”

“I’m sure you would’ve gotten along anyway.  _ You _ seem like the outdoorsy guy.”

Steve smiled. “Yeah. I never lived the high life. There were lots of times Bucky and I had to go on the run and rough it in the wilds.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Steve winced inwardly, trying not to show it. He was really digging his own grave here.

Tony, though, didn’t say anything. His expression got tight for the flicker of a second, then he reined himself in.

“It’s almost sunset,” Steve said, turning away towards the west, because he hated the way Tony just shut him out every time the conversation got fairly personal. He knew Bucky was still a sore spot, even though Tony had long accepted Bucky to be a part of the group whenever they needed to step out together. When  _ Steve _ mentioned Bucky, however, Tony always looked a second from either crumbling in on himself or from starting a fight.

“I’ll go looking for food,” Steve ventured. “There’s animals in the woods, I can hear them. I should be able to find something. Will you be alright alone here for a while?”

“I’ll climb a tree if anything turns up,” Tony joked wryly.

While Tony busied himself with their shelter again, Steve shrugged off his uniform jacket, picking up his shield and the solid metal strut and ghosted away into the woods.

The moment he entered the trees, he felt relief wash over him. It was… hard, being around Tony like this. It probably didn’t matter—either he treated Tony like a friend and risked Tony’s sharp words and angry glances, or he ignored him as best as he could and risked alienating the only person around him even further.

No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, it would be the wrong thing to do.

Which seemed to be the ever-recurring pattern for the two of them.

Around Steve, everything was dead silent—except for the rustle of the wind in the leaves and the soft chuckle of the stream nearby. He listened hard, but could hear nothing else.

The sunset threw spectacular shades of red into the evening sky and then the stars came out. There were millions of them, thickly peppering the night sky. No light pollution. He stared upwards, entranced.

So this dimension had a day and night, too, but the transition between the two was much faster. The way the sky darkened and rolled into night was something he would always remember, even if they managed to make it back to New York. It was eerie in its similarities, yet different enough to make him painfully aware that home was far, far away.

In the distance, he could hear thunder roaring.

It took three sweeps of the nearby wood before he encountered a fairly large boar with strange blueish fur, and another thirty minutes to hunt it down. He hoisted the beast onto his shoulder, and walked back to the meadow, all with the loom of an impending storm weighing over his head.

And with the uncertainty of where the future would take the two of them… of how to search for a way back home.

Once he arrived at their makeshift camp, the night was completely black, the thin sliver of a new, much smaller moon in the sky providing only the slightest bit of light.

When he entered the meadow, Tony was walking restlessly back and forth. Only when he saw Steve nearing, his expression shifted to relief.

“Took you long enough,” Tony said, staring at the limp blue shape dangling from Steve’s hand. “What’s that?”

“Boar. Or something close to a boar.” Steve smiled and held it up into the firelight. He saw Tony’s dubious look. “Should be edible.”

Tony frowned. “The mighty hunter.”

“I try. Lend me that switchblade?”

Tony did and followed him as he went off a little ways into the trees, then watched as Steve skinned and dressed the boar efficiently.

He saw the queasy look on Tony’s face and raised a brow in question.

“This is… absolutely disgusting,” Tony commented and he actually looked a little sick, as he watched with barely-guised disgust how Steve maneuvered a blade down the boar’s belly.

Steve gave him a sideways-slanting glance. “That’s what happens before you eat your burgers, too.”

“That’s no reason for me to  _ see _ it,” Tony murmured. He fell silent for a moment, before he cleared his throat. “How do you know what to do?”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked.

“Gutting an animal.”

Steve shrugged. “You learn a lot of things when you’re hungry.”

That had Tony frown. He opened his mouth to say something but apparently thought better of it, his expression tinted with that tight edge once more.

When he was finished, Steve went off to wash his hands in the stream. Back in the meadow, they got the boar’s legs roasting on a spit over the fire. The rest of the meat would likely spoil until morning, but there was nothing they could do about it.

“Cold?” he asked when he came back to the fire, seeing the way Tony was sitting with his arms wrapped around himself.

“A little,” he admitted.

Steve nodded. The air was a lot colder than it had been in New York and the fire only warmed the front of them. It hadn’t started raining yet, and Steve hoped it wouldn’t anytime soon.

He picked up his uniform jacket from where he had left it on a boulder and offered it to Tony. “Here.”

It was obvious that Tony wanted to decline, but his eyes flickered over the cloth and wonder of wonders—he accepted. Steve watched his absorbed face, those hard planes soft and concerned as he wrapped the jacket around himself. This close, the firelight threw the strong bones of his face into sharp relief, making the cheekbones and hard temples and jaw stand out. His thick, straight lashes cast a shadow on the flat plane of his cheek as he looked down at the lapels he was drawing together.

“Better?” Steve asked.

“Yes.”

“You’ll feel even better once you’ve had something to eat,” he said, clearing his throat. “I know for a fact you haven’t eaten much all day. Or week, probably. We’ve all been busy.”

“Right,” Tony asked, frowning. “How do you think New York will look like once we get back?”

“City took a hit, but that isn’t the first time. New Yorkers are tough. They always stand back up.”

Tony nodded. “True. So what do we do now?”

“Wait for dinner to finish cooking. Eat. Go to sleep.”

Tony sighed and Steve grinned.

“You’re bored, aren’t you? Nothing to twiddle with.”

“I…” Tony stopped, sighed. “Yeah. Any ideas?”

Steve chuckled. “We used to make our own entertainment in the old days.”

“And what was that, grandpa?”

Steve rolled his eyes. This was a stark déjà vu of their first meeting back in 2012. When everything was much easier, and not so burdened. They hadn’t exactly liked each other back then, that was true, but they had at least been able to look each other in the face without tensing up.

“Play games,” Steve offered. “Visit each other. Read, write letters. Mostly though, something that’s gone out of fashion these days.”

Tony raised his brows at him. “Which is?”

“Have conversations. Talk.” He cocked a mocking eyebrow at him.

Tony gave him a challenging look. “Okay, then. Talk to me.”

Steve blinked, admittedly a bit dumbfounded that Tony actually  _ agreed _ to talking. “About what?”

“Something pre-2016, if you ask me.”

Steve paused, taking a long breath.

“You’ve been Captain America a long time,” Tony offered. “Tell me about that.”

“Didn’t think war stories were your thing,” Steve said. “Didn’t Howard tell you enough of those?”

Tony shrugged. “I was always curious how much was him trying to drive me nuts and how much actually happened.”

Steve hummed. He watched Tony’s face, vivid in the firelight, trying to figure out if this was some kind of trap or if Tony actually wanted to know about him. The latter was hard to believe, but then again… what good would it do Tony to pick a fight now?

So he slowly started to tell Tony about Project Insight, the war, mostly keeping to the lighter stories. However, Tony was a keen observer and asked all the questions to get the whole story—the good and the bad things. Once Steve had told a few stories, his sardonic sense of humor added the long-awaited commentary, and soon enough, Steve found himself enjoying the conversation immensely.

The way Tony saw things was interesting, a wry, mocking, rueful attitude—though that wasn’t really a huge surprise. Tony Stark was anything but boring, that didn’t take much to figure out.

“You’re something else, Rogers,” Tony said when things had gotten quiet. “Dad clearly held out on me. You’re much more crazy than he made you out to be.”

That had Steve chuckle and smile at him, watching as he hid a yawn behind his hand.

“Better go to bed,” he said. “Been a long day.”

Tony seemed to realize that his eyelids were dropping. “You’re right.” He sighed and stretched.

Steve glanced down and smiled to himself. It was fleeting, but for the first time in a long while, he felt normal. Felt something like himself sneak its way home. And though the sensation surely wasn’t permanent, he wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.

“Never talked this long before,” he admitted, “just the two of us.”

Tony looked at him, his expression neutral. “Did you like it?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Very much.”

Tony betrayed nothing, instead he started to hand Steve’s jacket back to him.

“Keep it,” Steve said. “Spread it out over the pine boughs. Won’t be so prickly that way.” He leaned forward and started to bank the fire. “Don’t worry about anything. I’ll be up.”

Tony turned, surprised. “Do we need to keep watch?”

Steve shook his head. “I’ll know if anything comes close. Just not sleepy yet. My body’s produced too much adrenaline during the fight.”

Tony hesitated, and his gaze flickered towards the dark sky. The clouds were still hanging low, but eventually, he nodded.

He walked towards the shelter and Steve watched, as he shifted around for a long while, before finally drifting off to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a few hours later, probably no more than three, when Tony suddenly jolted awake on a few mumbled, panicked words. It was still dark, the wind still howling through the trees. From the few sounds leaving Tony’s lips, Steve only made out ‘don’t’ and ‘please’ and he cast Tony a worrying look once his brown eyes found his. It obviously took a moment for Tony to realize where he was and why he was sleeping out in the open.

“You alright?” Steve asked.

“I… yeah. Just a bad dream,” Tony murmured, rubbing a hand over his face.

Steve nodded, saying nothing. They all had their fair share of nightmares, and he’d known Tony’d had a particularly hard time after his fight against Aldrich Killian, and once more after Ultron.

He’d gotten better, or so Steve had thought, but then again, he didn’t know much about Tony after what had happened in Siberia.

Tony once more opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. It was a thing he did these days, double-checking every word he said, and more often than not biting back whatever thought had come to mind.

He kept looking at Steve for a few long moments, then moved to the side, offering him space. “You should sleep, too.”

Steve shook his head. “Shelter’s for you. It’s okay. I’ll sleep a bit in the morning.”

“It’s big enough for two,” Tony argued and glanced towards the sky. “It looks like it’ll rain and all that this situation needs is for you to get soaked and catch a cold.”

“I don’t catch colds.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Well, I don’t like sleeping warm and dry while you’re out there getting wet. We know shit about the climate in this dimension. Feels like it could be getting real cold at night, and when you’re wet, that cold is going to feel a thousand times worse.”

Steve sighed. It was almost ridiculous, watching Tony fret over him like this. And the last thing he wanted right now was to argue with him. So he laid down the strut and came towards the shelter.

“Was that so hard?” Tony asked once they were lying back to back on the makeshift bed.

_Yes,_ Steve thought. “Good night,” he said instead.

Tony shifted. “Good night, Steve.”

They weren’t touching, but he could feel the warmth of Tony’s body close to his and smell his scent and hear the soft sound of his breathing slowing as he fell asleep. For him, it was a kind of refined torture, to be this close with all these memories still haunting him. Tony’s look when he’d found out about his parents. The widened eyes just before Steve had pushed his shield into the arc reactor. The fear—the sudden certainty in his expression that he’d die, right then, at Steve’s hands…

Steve forced himself to blank out his mind and fall asleep since no good, no good at all was going to come out of staying awake.

Only more pain.

 

* * *

 

He woke up a couple of hours later to find himself on his back with something pressed up against his side. Steve opened his eyes, feeling the cold air chilling his every move. Tony was lying beside him, his back against Steve’s arm, curled into himself, a hand resting protectively over his own chest. He looked younger like this, Steve thought belatedly, the sharpness and wariness completely gone from his face.

Yesterday had been a good day—or as good as could be expected. They’d had a conversation, a _real_ conversation that had gone on for hours, not just a few orders flung at each other. They had really talked and even enjoyed themselves.

Maybe, Steve suddenly thought—maybe when all of this was over, they could be friends again.

After another half hour, Tony stirred. Eyes open the barest fraction, Steve watched him through his lashes, wondering whether he would be angry and upset when he realized where he was, and more importantly: who he was with.

Tony’s head turned and brushed the curve of Steve’s shoulder, then he felt his sudden stillness and knew he was awake. Through the screen of his lashes, Steve saw that he didn’t look angry; he just looked startled and maybe even a little amused. He stared down at Steve thoughtfully for a while, then frowned all of a sudden. Steve held his breath, then was completely shocked when Tony’s fingers brushed his face lightly, first beside his left eye and then just beneath it. Then he drew back. He felt Tony sit up and work his way downwards and out of the shelter.

Quietly, Steve turned over and watched Tony get up and move out of sight, heading towards the stream.

He gave him about ten minutes, then got up himself.

Tony was kneeling by the stream, his undersuit rolled down to his waist, splashing his face and chest before staring down at the water. “God, I’m old,” Steve heard him murmur.

“Not _that_ old,” Steve countered as he neared him.

Tony grimaced at Steve as he wiped the water out of his eyes. “There’s a too many gray hairs that beg to differ. So—definitely too old to camp in the wilderness. My back’s killing me. And I would give my whole fortune for a toothbrush.”

Steve broke off a green twig, frayed one end and handed it to him. “Toothbrush. Sorry, no toothpaste, not even salt. That was what we used to do during the war when the rations ran out. Dip a frayed twig in salt to brush our teeth.”

“That sounds absolutely disgusting,” Tony said, but stuck the twig in his mouth either way.

“Wait a minute.” Steve went back to the lean-to, dug around in the pockets of his jacket and came back in triumph when he found a roll of mints.

“Here,” he said.

“Ah,” Tony said. “I kept thinking there was something hard pressing into my back.”

They both stilled, then started laughing.

“That was— _not_ what I meant,” Tony said on a chuckle. “Fuck you, Rogers.”

Steve only smiled, throwing the mints at him. “Another thing that needs to be rationed.”

“Oh, joy.”

Steve grinned. He pulled off his uniform top and the shirt beneath, throwing it in the grass before leaning down to the water. He scrubbed himself with military efficiency, and only when he realized Tony had gotten completely quiet, he looked up.

“Something wrong?” he asked as he caught Tony staring at him intensely, but Tony only shook his head as he turned.

“Nope. You just… you had two deep scratches yesterday. Here and here.” He brushed his fingertips beside his own left eye and then beneath it.

“Oh! That’s why you...” Steve stopped abruptly before betraying the fact that he had been awake when Tony had touched him earlier. “I heal fast. You know that.”

Tony hummed, as he pulled the suit back on. “I’ll prepare breakfast.”

“Thanks.”

“Cold pork. Wonder if it’ll taste better if we toast it over the fire.”

He had already fanned the embers into a blaze by the time Steve got to the firepit. Tony looked up at him, then squatted on his heels beside the fire.

“I thought we could spar a little. After breakfast,” Steve said, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he felt them hanging in the air between them.

It was one thing, to co-exist next to each other as best as they could, trying to be friendly, but Steve figured it was another thing entirely for Tony to actually agree to spending time with him.

“Like we did back then,” Steve added. “I mean… if you’re up for it. With your wounds, I’m not sure—We could take it easy.”

Even as he spoke, he already saw it: the tightness in Tony’s face, the furrowed brow. It was then that Steve realized that yesterday hadn’t been about them overcoming their differences, or them becoming friends again. Tony was only trying to get by, deal with this in the adult way, and get this over with as fast as he could.

The disappointment was sharp and all-consuming, but Steve tried his very best not to let it show.

“I’d only bore you,” Tony said at last, though it was clearly only a flimsy excuse. “Suit doesn’t work and I’m out of practice.”

“Just because you aren’t a threat to me doesn’t mean I’m bored,” Steve tried. “There’s no point getting out of shape while we’re here. Who knows how long the team will take to find us.”

“I’d rather not,” Tony said, more firmly now, not offering much more in terms of explanation.

Steve looked down at his hands and nodded. Then he stood up, putting the griddle off the fire. “Think this is ready to eat.”

The pork had tasted really good last night and wasn’t half bad this morning either. They sat next to each other, eating in pointed silence, and Steve felt his good mood vaporizing.

“I’ll go looking through the ruins again,” Tony said, after they had finished. “Try and see if I can find some food, or blankets.”

Steve nodded. “Good. I’ll go for a run… scout the area a bit.”

“You shouldn’t stay away too long,” Tony ventured cautiously. “In case the portal opens. If Bruce manages to create a rift, it’ll only be open for a couple of seconds.”

“I’ll stay in hearing range. I won’t be gone long,” Steve answered, then swallowed down the last of his meal and stood up.

He reached for his shield, and walked towards the woods. Turning around one last time, he saw Tony sitting hunched at the fire, face in both of his hands, the pork lying forgotten on the ground. And he tried not give way to satisfaction, knowing that this was just as hard on Tony as it was on Steve.

Once in the woods, Steve followed the river down south for a few miles before turning back. But no matter where he went, there were only ever trees and soil and an endless yellow sky. As much as the solitude did him good, there was nothing to find outside their small meadow, so after an hour or two, he started jogging back to the clearing.

There was nothing out here to find, not if they wanted to stay where they were right now.

Tony only spared him the shortest of glances, and with a silent understanding, Steve walked over to the other side of the tower ruins, far away from Tony, and looked for things to salvage as well.

 

* * *

 

During the next couple of days, they mostly gathered and inventoried supplies. Tony had found a few food cans in the ruins of his former kitchen and even a mostly torn blanket they’d now spread out beneath their shelter.

Yesterday, they’d scouted the area together one more time, and apart from that: They hunted and fished, washed their clothes, they built and ate and slept. Tony continually worked on their shelter, improved it with tools he’d found in the penthouse, while Steve cooked over the fire. When they were not doing that, they were taking shelter from the storms that were slowly getting worse. And when they were not doing that, they were doing the rest all over again.

Sometimes, when the weather allowed it, they swam in the river, even when it was not to wash the day away. They played chess with rocks Tony had gathered, they talked here and there, Steve telling stories that were on safe grounds—nothing too personal—, and more often than not, Steve dozed off to the sound of Tony’s voice.

After another good few days, however, Tony seemingly dropped his resolution to keep Steve at a safe distance. A little, at least. He seemed more relaxed around him, and at dinner, he even went so far and shared a few stories as well. He told Steve about his past years, about taking over Stark Industries when he was only twenty-one, how he both admired and feared Obadiah and that he still had trouble believing that he could’ve betrayed him like that. He told Steve about how he’d always known that those parties, the many girls, the booze and other narcotics, were slowly wearing him down. That the need to find some kind of meaning for his life had always been there, but he’d never found the purpose to really change his ways.

His voice was quiet and the self-loathing made itself apparent, though Tony obviously tried not to let any emotions show, and Steve thought that maybe, for the first time, he truly understood why Tony had become the man he was today.

And how wrong he’d been about him for a very long time.

“You’re a good man,” Steve said and in that moment, he felt like maybe this, _here_ , was as much Tony’s absolution as it was Steve’s.

Tony smiled, at seemingly nothing in particular. His once meticulously groomed goatee was now fraying at the edges, making him look somewhat less intimidating. “You, too, Cap,” he said quietly.

“And we’re good together,” Steve added wistfully. “Or we used to be. Whenever there’s a catastrophe at hand, we all work like a well-oiled machine. Once the fight’s fought, however…”

“Not so good,” Tony finished. “Any idea why that is?”

Steve opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out. He was beyond words when it came to this question. A silence fell.

Tony’s gaze was dropping as well, the crease between his brows very evident. He was obviously thinking hard. “It was… it was a really going off the rails moment.”

“A what?”

“What happened between you and me, it tore everything apart. Permanently.”

Steve stilled, realizing what they were talking about now. They were talking about what they had _never_ talked about so far and… he immediately felt like walking on a very thin layer of ice. “Yes,” he said, his voice subdued.

“I keep replaying it in my head,” Tony said. “Not just our little stuntshow there, but the whole thing… and I…” He trailed off, then glanced back up at him as well. “Do you think if you and I had ever learned to get along better… If you felt like you could’ve maybe trusted me, that you—”

“I would’ve told you,” Steve said immediately. “I _should’ve_ told you. There’s no excuse for keeping it from you.”

“Then why did you?”

Steve grimaced. He’d often asked himself the same question, and he’d found many excuses—that he’d wanted to protect Bucky, that he’d never found the right time, that Tony hadn’t made it easy to trust him, but… at the end of the day, all of those excuses crumbled when looked at too closely.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, and it was surely the wrong thing to say, but it was the truth, and he’d made one promise to himself—that from here on out, Tony would only ever get the truth from him.

“You have your reasons to be mad at me,” Steve continued after a long beat, leaning back with a heavy sigh. “Not that I didn’t wish you could overcome them, but… you have reasons. I respect them.”

“I don’t think you were really trying,” Tony said.

“Trying?”

“To explain it to me. Your reasons for protecting Barnes. I wouldn’t have listened back then, maybe not for a long time, but we’ve worked together again for a couple of months now, and you… you never even tried to talk to me.”

“What?” Steve asked, dumbfounded. “I tried talking to you _dozens_ of time. Tried to explain what I did, too. You never listened.”

Tony huffed, and Steve saw his hands flexing. “Hate to break it to you, but constantly staring at me from across the conference table isn’t trying to have a conversation.”

Steve blushed. “I was… I didn’t really know where to start. I wrote the letter—”

“And you really expected me to make the first move just because you wrote me a few sentimental lines?”

Steve sighed, shaking his head. “No. But… ever since I came back to New York… everything’s skewed. I didn’t know how to behave around you. It always felt like you didn’t want to talk.”

“So you just told yourself there was no reason to try and that was that,” Tony concluded, sounding angry. He remained still for a long, pregnant moment. Then, something in his eyes shifted. “You said something about sparring the other day? Let’s do that.”

“Now?” Steve said, swallowing as the thoughts in his head ran a mile a minute. “It’s late.”

“What, you got plans for tomorrow?” Tony asked, a mocking tone in his voice.

Steve rolled his eyes, though he really had a bad feeling about this. “Alright then. If you wanna spar, let’s spar.”

They walked to a clear area of the meadow. Tony rolled up his sleeves, while Steve dropped his jacket to the ground. “We should start off slow,” he called over. “You haven’t done this in a while and you’re still recovering. I’m gonna try to hit you. You block.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be in slow motion. You’ll see it coming. You respond at any speed. Whatever comes naturally, okay?”

“ _Yes, Steve_ ,” Tony said pointedly.

Thus, his fist came towards Tony’s face in slow motion and Tony struck it away. Steve threw another blow and Tony countered. It became a slow dance, weaving back and forth, a smooth, intricate motion.

Then Tony’s fist came at him with sizzling speed, out of nowhere. Steve blocked it without thinking.

“Okay, good,” praised and barely had the time to dodge before Tony came at him again. He did it again, and again, dishing out angry, uncoordinated hits at Steve.

“Tony,” Steve warned as he saw the tight expression in Tony’s face. “It’s just sparring. Cool down a bit.”

Tony backed up a little, falling back into their usual back-and-forth.

Steve moved a little faster now—and Tony was keeping up. Faster still—and Tony was holding his own. It made him try a few new moves, and he barely managed to pull his punch in time before clipping Tony across the jaw. Tony had frozen up and Steve had come right under his guard.

“You were thinking,” Steve pointed out. “Don’t think. Let your mind go blank. Your body remembers the moves. Let it take over. Action and response. Just go with the flow.”

“ _Go with the flow_?” Tony echoed, huffing. “You speaking ‘21st century’ is still all kinds of disturbing.”

They started out slow again, and once more it was Tony who sped up rapidly.

“Take it slow,” Steve warned, as Tony attacked him with both punches and kicks. Something in his gaze was feral, full of heated intensity, in need of— _something_. To hurt Steve maybe, or to get some closure.

Trying to block one of Tony’s punches, Steve’s fist hit his shoulder hard and it knocked him backwards.

He was falling, twisting as he fell. Steve caught a glimpse of a rock in the grass below him, knew absolutely that Tony was going to hit his temple on it. He flung himself at him, his arm coming around Tony’s head. They both struck the ground and Steve realized with a pained grunt that he had wrenched his shoulder getting between Tony and that rock.

“Steve! Shit. Are you alright?”

Steve let out a little breath and sagged back on the grass, his arm still cradling Tony’s head. “Yeah. You?”

“I’m fine.”

“Started thinking again, didn’t you?”

“I—I’m sorry. This was… stupid.”

“Not your fault.” He let Tony go and pushed himself up on one straight arm, smiling at him.

“Thank you for getting between me and that rock.”

His gaze moved across Tony’s face, lingering. “No problem,” Steve said as he caught his breath. Then, he glanced at Tony and tried for a smile. “Got it out of your system?”

Tony hummed, suddenly chuckling. When he was done, he returned Steve’s smile. “It was a start,” he answered and for the first time since Siberia—or Ultron, really—he looked at Steve like the only thing that mattered was this moment, right here, right now.

 

* * *

 

Tony kept wiggling next to him. They were both sitting in the shelter, watching the few drops of rain falling to the ground, and Tony was constantly shifting. Craning his back, he tried to reach behind himself, scratching his lower back, though that obviously didn’t do him any good.

“Got an itch?” Steve called, a bit dumbfounded. The wind was so loud now they sometimes had trouble understanding each other.

“No,” Tony called back, his voice clipped. “But a warning that we were going to be stuck in a goddamn forest for over a month would’ve been nice. Wearing a tight overall out here is definitely _not_ useful. There’s something pricking me right between my shoulder blades and it’s driving me nuts.”

Ah, that explained the constant wiggling in the last hour.

“Let me see,” Steve offered, reaching for the zipper at Tony’s back.

Tony stilled, eyeing his hand. After a beat of contemplation, he turned sideways, giving Steve access.

He opened the undersuit, then put his hand into the top, touching along Tony’s spine. Tony shivered slightly when Steve’s fingertips pressed against his skin.

“Sorry,” Steve said, making a fist to lessen the coldness of his fingers a little. When he didn’t find anything, he rolled the top further down, baring Tony’s shoulder along the way.

Tony glanced back at him. “Usually I’d say you need to buy me dinner first, but technically speaking, you’ve constantly fed me for the past weeks, so…”

Steve paused, huffing a low laugh. His fingers trailed a bit lower, searching the heated skin for—

“There it is,” Steve announced. He picked off a few pine needles and showed them to Tony.

Tony grimaced. “I’m definitely a city person. I’m not cut out for roughing it.”

“Trust me, you’re coping better than I thought you would.”

“Well, _thank you_.” He rolled his eyes at Steve, while he was brushing a hand over his chin and cheeks. He sighed. “The things I would do for a razor.”

Steve smiled. Tony’s goatee couldn’t really be called a goatee anymore, by now he had stubble all over his lower face.

“You never grow a beard?” Tony asked, raising a brow at him.

Steve reached for his chin, feeling the light stubble beneath his fingertips. “I do. Just takes longer.”

“Lucky guy,” Tony said, smiling too.

There was a loud thunder in the distance, making them both jump a bit. The rain was really only a soft drizzle, but far away, Steve could see dark clouds hanging in the sky.

“Should we worry about that?” Tony asked as he looked heavenwards, pulling the undersuit back on.

Steve had a gut feeling that once the gates would open, it’d take a long time till they’d see the sun again.

“Not much we can do,” Steve said, looking around. “Shelter’s in good shape, thanks to you. Maybe we should try and stock up our supplies, look for something that doesn’t require cooking.”

Tony nodded. “Good thinking.”

 

* * *

 

When it briefly stopped raining, they made their way into the woods. It took them half an hour before they found some trees with orange fruits hanging from their crowns. They’d first found them a few days ago, on one of their walks through the woods. Not sure if they were poisonous at first, they’d done a few tests—touching the fruits to their lips, keeping it in their mouths, only eating a little and then waiting for reactions. By now, it was safe to say the fruits were edible, and aside from fish, rabbits and boars and a deer-like animal with _pink fur_ , the fruits were their main food supply.

Tony gave the tree in front of them a speculative glance, then handed Steve the rope they’d found in the tower’s ruins. Steve covered himself with it, then started climbing. Even though the tree was very high, and only had few branches, it wasn’t hard, since Steve had always been sure of foot, even as a sickly kid.

At top of the tree you could see the escarpment that ran the length of the river. It was by no means the highest point in the land, but it did get Steve up high enough that he had a pretty good view up and down the river.

“Anything to see?” Tony asked.

“Nope,” Steve said. He untangled the rope and threw a few of the fruits down to the ground.

An hour later, Steve sank his toes deeper into the grass and watched Tony in the tree, filling the pack at his side with fruit. They were taking turns with this, not because Steve couldn’t have done it all by himself, but because Tony was always getting bored if he stood at the sidelines too long.

He scaled the branches with precision, and Steve really hadn’t known that Tony could be agile like this. Sure, in his Iron Man suit he was grace personified, always in motion, always looking somehow… lighter than he did in his own skin.

Steve had always thought that there was something effortless and liberated in the way Tony moved in the suit, and looking at him now, as he climbed those trees, Steve realized, maybe for the first time, how much of that was actually Tony—and not Iron Man.

“Ah shit,” Tony grunted as he climbed down. “I got some kind of resin all over me.”

Steve looked him up and down. It was true, Tony’s undersuit and his hands and bare feet were covered in a sticky amber-colored fluid.

“Let’s go to the river. You can wash off there,” he suggested.

They walked down the embankment, after wrapping the fruits in one of the blankets they’d salvaged from the tower. Once there, Tony tested the water tentatively with his hand. “It’s goddamn cold,” he complained.

“Just jump in,” Steve answered. “It’ll get better.”

Tony still hesitated, so without further ado, Steve stripped out of his pants, shirt and underwear and jumped right in.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Tony called after him. He stood on the bank, looking at Steve with the beginning of a laugh on his lips.

Steve grinned, rubbing the icy-cold water out of his eyes. “And you’re a chicken.”

“I’m not a chicken!”

“Then get in here! The water’s cold, but it’s still bearable.”

“I’m pretty sure your ‘bearable’ and my ‘bearable’ are two different things.”

“Chi-cken,” Steve repeated teasingly, as he let himself float in the water a bit. It _was_ cold, colder than he made it seem, probably. He closed his eyes against the very dim sunlight, and only smiled when he heard splashes of water followed by a sharp intake of breath.

“T-this,” Tony stuttered, “is _n-not_ bearable.”

Steve opened his eyes and saw Tony swimming next to him. Feeling as light as he hadn’t in a very long time, Steve grinned again and splashed some water at him.

Tony yelped, and immediately set out to return the attack. “You’re going _down_ , Rogers,” he threatened as Steve continued to shove the water at him.

Soon enough, they were battling each other with no reservation whatsoever. The water wasn’t getting any warmer, and they were both red-faced and probably stupid and reckless for staying in there this long. But dammit, Steve couldn’t care less.

Tony was laughing with him, a happy gleam in his eyes as they chased each other around the stream. And they were cold, and yes—still hungry. They were far from home and would potentially face even worse obstacles very soon, and yet, in this moment, Steve couldn’t imagine anywhere else he’d rather be.


	3. Chapter 3

When they made their way back to the camp, it was already dark. The sky was rolling with wavering, quivering clouds, and in the distance, a thunderstorm was roaring.

They had, apparently, made it back just in time before the gates opened at last and rain began pouring down on them. And Steve had a feeling that it’d take a whole long time before it’d stop again.

Soon after, they were huddling beneath their shelter, the blanket drawn around them both as they stared at the torrent of raindrops.

“We’ll have to wait out the rain,” Steve said and looked to the side and at the branches over their heads. Water was already dripping into both of their hair.

Tony’s face twisted in annoyance. “It would’ve withstood a l-lot, but this is r-ridiculous.” As he spoke, white clouds left his mouth and he was shivering with the cold. “We sh-should’ve s-set up camp in the r-ruins.”

“The tower fell down at a 90 degree angle, there would’ve been no room. You’ve seen how it looks in there.”

Tony grimaced, but nodded either way.

“I’m sorry about the tower, by the way,” Steve added.

“Oh, c-come on,” Tony huffed. “You never liked it there.”

“I did like it,” Steve said, frowning at him. “It was home.”

Tony blinked, obviously surprised. A drop of rain fell onto his head, then another on his nose.

Steve heaved an annoyed breath and looked up at the ceiling. With his left arm, he nudged Tony closer beneath a large trunk where the coverage was thickest.

“The facility was home, too,” he said. “Home was wherever the team was. At least, for me.”

“I t-thought you were h-happy to get away from all t-that.”

Steve shook his head. “No,” he said firmly, frowning down at Tony, who was staring up at him in return. “When I got to Wakanda, I was… I don’t even know what I was. I stayed in the gym most of the day, and when I didn’t do that, I stared out into the jungle. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that numb in my whole life. It was only slowly sinking in, you know? What I’d lost. But when it _had_ , I was… There was only me to blame.”

He jerked a little when he felt Tony’s hand on his own. “T-takes t-two to t-tango…” he said, stuttering so badly he barely got the words out.

“I know that,” Steve agreed. “I’m not saying I regret all of it. You know I don’t.” He smiled a little, though he didn’t feel it. “But I always regretted the outcome. I’d do a lot to change what happened. I… I never wanted to fight you.”

Tony sighed, nodded. “Me n-neither.” He was clutching his arms closer around himself, but the sodden cloth obviously didn’t do him any good.

“Your lips are getting blue,” Steve stated.

“It’s n-nothing,” he forced the words out of his mouth. “As you s-said: We’ll just have to w-wait.”

Steve let loose a long and exasperated sigh. Tony frowned at him, realizing that Steve was pulling off his jacket and shirt.

“What are you d-doing?”

“Body heat,” was all Steve said as he pushed his pants down, leaving only his underwear. “Come on, get out of your overall.”

“‘s n-not an o-overall,” Tony tried to snap, but there was literally no heat behind it.

“I’m built for this. I always run warm,” Steve explained. “You’re not. And Rhodes will kill me if you get sick and die.”

Tony’s mouth was a thin line, but eventually, he shrugged out of the undersuit, rolling it down to his hips. He sighed, or tried to, what with all the shaking, as he pushed it further down, until he was only sitting there in his boxer briefs.

“H-how did my l-life turn into a B-brokeback M-mountain revival?” he asked as Steve wrapped his arms around him, pressing against him until they were touching from shoulder to feet. Tony wrapped himself around Steve, too. His hands were cold as ice, and Steve shivered and had to stop himself from pushing those hands over every part of himself until Tony was warm again.

“I got that reference,” Steve stated and laughed when Tony tried to glare at him. “Am I Heath Ledger in that analogy?”

“Are you—” Tony echoed, adorably flustered. “Certainly n-not!”

Steve grinned as he draped the blanket and all of their clothes back over them. “Come on, Tony, this is normal survival procedure. Nothing else.”

“‘m n-not Jake G-Gyllenhaal. And I’m n-not gonna get s-sick and die,” Tony stuttered.

“As I said, your lips are blue and I can feel you shivering.” Steve shook his head, not understanding why Tony would fight him on this. “We’ve been wet for hours. You could sink into hypothermic shock.” His hands stroked up and down Tony’s sides, and the last of Tony’s protests suffocated under the weight of Steve’s serious gaze.

“You’re r-really warm,” he murmured, his voice already much more steady, and Steve stilled a little, when he felt Tony pressing himself even further against him.

Hours later, the two of them were still crouched beneath the lean-to, rain dripping in steady intervals, soaking the ground beneath them—and this despite Tony having laid down several boughs of pine branches.

“I’m glad you’re with me,” Steve said. He hoped Tony was too cold and sleepy to mock him, and the thought was confirmed when Tony nodded and let Steve tuck him further against his chest.

“I’m glad you’re with me, too,” Tony answered, and even though he wasn’t stuttering anymore, the words were barely comprehensible in the midst of the storm. “For what it’s worth.”

Steve smiled, a bit disbelieving that Tony would admit something like that. “Don’t say such things. If you say things like that we really must be close to dying.”

Tony snorted. “Screw you. I’m trying to be nice and all I’m getting is sass.”

That night, Tony murmured a lot of things about survival, warm breath on Steve’s neck, as he eventually sagged, exhausted and tired, against Steve’s shoulder.

When Steve opened his eyes again, the forest was pale with early morning. It was still raining, though the sharp cold wind had definitely lessened. There was a weight on Steve’s shoulder and across his ribcage. He opened his eyes cautiously and looked down. Tony’s head was in the curve of his shoulder and his arm across his stomach.

He was fast asleep.

Steve sighed, counting to three. Then he curved his arm carefully around Tony and dropped his face into his hair. Tony smelled of metal and a clean, earthy scent that Steve hadn’t really noticed before.

He bit his lower lip. _What am I doing,_ he thought, storing up every moment of this in his memory, not fully understanding why he wanted to remember this so badly.

When Tony stirred, Steve reluctantly let his arm fall away from him. Tony glanced up and he still looked tired, a bit feverish—and already thinner than he had when they’d arrived here.

Steve had no idea how much longer they could live like this. The only thing he could do was hope the others would find them soon.

 

* * *

 

“Forty days,” Tony said, bringing Steve out of his reverie. “You’d think they’d have found us by now.”

Steve nodded, as he let his gaze wander over the meadow. After days of rain, the weather had finally calmed down. It didn't exactly reach summerlike temperatures, but the sun was casting a nice warmth down on them.

They were sitting on a large log next to their fireplace. Tony was busy fiddling with his tools and a piece of wood, while Steve just sat there, gazing into the strange yellow sky.

He didn’t usually mind the wilderness. He didn’t mind being outside during the sticky heat of summer or the blistering cold of winter. But those last days had really done a number on the two of them. They hadn’t been able to eat much, and they’d spent most of the day lying in their shelter, trying to keep warm and save energy.

Rain, and thunder, and the chill—that was certainly worse in this dimension and Steve was infinitely glad that Tony seemed to recover well. He certainly _had_ gotten thinner, and with his almost fully-grown beard, he looked a lot different than the Tony Stark he knew from back home. But he was healthy and in good spirits now that he was able to move again, and in Steve’s book that was all that mattered.

When exactly he’d made ‘Keep Tony safe’ his mission, he didn’t know, but he would do anything to make it happen.

As soon as the rain had stopped, they’d gone hunting together, and Tony had even helped him with gutting and cleaning the animals after. They’d eaten as much as their stomachs allowed, and afterwards, Tony immediately set out to repair and improve their shelter.

Steve loved seeing Tony so passionate about something. There was a lot of science involved in wilderness survival, in the discovery of this dimension, and Tony obviously enjoyed making use of it a lot.

“They would ask Strange for help,” Tony said, sounding more thoughtful than actually angered. “And Strange—no matter how much of an asshole he is—knows how to track the portal’s traces. It shouldn’t take this long, unless…” He sighed, glancing at Steve. “Unless they didn’t even find out we fell through the portal in the first place. In _that_ case…”

“All sorts of things could be happening,” Steve said. “Don’t give up hope.”

“Maybe it’s permanent, have you never thought about that?”

“If it’s permanent, then it’s permanent. We’ll deal with it.”

Tony heaved a low breath. It obviously took him a long moment to let that idea sink in, but when it did, he didn’t look too troubled by it. “We could build a bigger shelter. Log cabin or something,” he offered.

Steve nodded. “Then start collecting and smoking food for winter. We shouldn’t start looking for civilization now. Might get caught without food or shelter. I’d camp out here until the weather gets warmer. Start looking then.”

Tony nodded as well, his shoulders relaxing again. “You know…” he started. “I know I should be hoping that they find us soon, but… it’s actually the first time I’ve been able to relax in a very long time. And I… I like it here.”

Steve looked at him in surprise. “You do?”

“Yes. I mean—I miss coffee. I can’t tell you how much I miss coffee. And I could do without the storms and the rain, but… there are always so many demands and expectations. People keep pushing and prodding at me. Won’t leave me alone.” He gave him a curious look. “You don’t push. You’re… you want the most from me—from everyone. But you don’t push.”

“I did, a while back. I pushed till we fought each other.”

Tony smiled a little pensive. “And how’d that work out for you?”

“About how you’d think. But I learned my lesson.”

“We both did.”

Steve returned Tony’s smile and a comfortable silence fell between them.

It had been a good forty-something days, Steve thought. He knew he probably shouldn’t be so happy to finally spend an easy-going time with Tony, but for the time being, he’d decided to just live in the moment.

He and Tony… they worked surprisingly well together. Spending the day with him was, miraculously, no hardship at all. He just hoped Tony wouldn’t forget all this when they got back home. Without the ever-present baggage of the past, everything felt so very… natural. And Steve just wished that when they were back home, a little, just a little of what Tony was seeing in him now would remain.

Next to him, Tony hummed—three short hums that Steve had by now recognized as Tony’s ‘I finished something and it works perfectly’ victory-sound.

“You’ve been busy,” Steve said and pointed at the various utensils Tony had created ever since the rain had stopped.

“Need to keep myself occupied. I’m easily bored.” Tony smiled as he let his knife move across a larger piece of wood in his lap.

He was making some kind of water wheel, Steve realized. He must’ve looked really stunned, because after a beat, Tony set out to explain, “The river’s effectively the only constant power source we got. At some point we could also use the thunder, but it’d take a while for me to figure out a way to store that energy out here. A water wheel could potentially give us electricity some day, or at the very least help us create and store more food and maybe reuse some of the tower’s metal.”

“That’s… amazing,” Steve said, unable to hold back any of the awe he was currently feeling.

“You can say that once it’s working.”

He put a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “It’s you. It’ll work.”

Tony paused, looking up at him. There was a light pinch between his eyebrows as he stared at Steve, like he wasn’t sure where to put him.

“Steve…”

There was a loud crowing coming from the woods, and Tony startled, the knife skidding across the surface of the wood. Steve caught its handle in a blur of super soldier speed before the razor edge of the blade could impact with Tony’s knee.

“Careful with that,” he said.

“God, you move fast.” Tony shook his head, both at his lapse of attention and at Steve’s speed. “That’s unfairly attractive.”

Steve stilled. Then looked at Tony in question.

After a moment, Tony raised an eyebrow at Steve. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, I was just saying… didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I…” Steve said, planning to continue with something equally bawdy, but only managed an unwitty, “Okay.”

A flicker of… _something_ … moved across Tony’s face, but he hid it quickly behind one of his publicity-smiles. “You look like a goldfish,” he said. “I’m… flexible. Always have been. I take it you didn’t know that?”

“No,” Steve ventured. He _had_ known Tony had lived a wild life back in the day, but when Steve had met him the first time, he’d already been in a relationship with Pepper, and Steve figured that was that.

“Well, I hope it’s not a problem,” Tony said. “Breathe, Rogers. I won’t hit on you or anything. I’m not that stupid.”

Steve only managed to nod with a smile that was flimsy at best. He had no idea why, but his gut clenched uncomfortably at those words—and when he looked at Tony, it felt a lot like he was missing something important. “Alright.”

Tony held his gaze a little longer, then nodded and resumed his work on the water wheel, leaving Steve to his jumbled thoughts.

 

* * *

 

Steve didn’t really keep track of the days after that. It didn’t matter to him any more.

At some point they’d be saved—or they had to make a life for them here. The cycle would continue whether or not he was paying attention, and he liked to think that it wasn’t better to know just how many days they’ve spent under this otherworldly sun.

Also, their latest conversation at the fire had somehow left Steve in a confused state of agitation. It wasn’t about Tony liking both men and women. Admittedly, Steve hadn’t known that about him, but Steve didn’t _care_ what Tony did and who he did it with. It was something else that bothered him, but he simply couldn’t put his finger on it.

Thus, Steve’d spent those last days in a state of haze and while Tony had cast him cautious glances at first, he was now keeping his distance. It was really frustrating after the good time they’d been having. It felt a lot like a setback, and Steve _hated_ knowing that he was the reason for it.

It was already late in the afternoon when Steve came back home from today’s hunt. He didn’t know when exactly the meadow had become ‘home’ but he didn’t question it. When he didn’t find Tony there, he decided to walk towards the river.

He was exhausted from hours of hunting rabbits and he needed a drink. However, when he got out of the bushes to where the moss was flat and the ground was clear around the river’s edge, what he saw stopped him in his tracks.

Tony was in the water, with his back to Steve. He was obviously naked, leaning against a larger rock, and Steve found himself unable to move away or look elsewhere.

This was… Steve didn’t know _what_ it was. He’d seen other men naked before, after missions, in the shower, or the contamination chambers. He’d also seen Tony half-naked here, scrubbing himself clean in the river, or just when changing afterwards. Modesty usually was a thing of the past for Steve, hell, they’d spent _days_ pressed against each other, with Steve brushing his fingers over Tony’s arms, and his back, tracing his muscles, and…

A low breath left Steve’s lips, as his eyes travelled up and down Tony’s body. His body was different from how Steve would have imagined it. His back was more muscular, and the lines of his legs were more defined than he’d expected.

The vastness of the dimension shrunk to a tiny circle of which Tony was the center.

And just like that, the fog in Steve’s mind lifted. Every look they’d shared, every friendly touch, every time they’d breathed the same air was on replay. Their friendship—it had always been intense. They’d never been able to just fall into it, instead they’d always kept each other on their toes, never sure where they stood exactly. Never sure what it was that they wanted from the other.

And looking at Tony now—Steve couldn’t help thinking that maybe… _maybe_ it simply hadn’t been friendship what he’d been after. Maybe friendship hadn’t been enough, and all these emotions, the sheer _intensity_ of it, had been too much to handle without the proper outlet.

Steve just stood there, made motionless by the epiphany that was washing over him like waves in a storm.

_I gotta give him privacy,_ Steve thought in a haze, and he was about to leave, when he realized what exactly Tony was doing right there, standing in the water.

He was leaning against the rock, and only now, when Tony let his head fall back in his neck, a soft moan hitting the air, Steve saw his hand move back and forth under the water.

_Oh_ , Steve’s mind supplied unhelpfully. Tony was stroking himself, slowly and softly, to a rhythm that seemed as practiced and habitual as the one Steve employed on the days when he went for a bath and tried to think about faceless girls to relieve himself.

It was… it shouldn’t surprise Steve. Dammit, it surely shouldn’t leave him open-mouthed and outright _gaping_ at Tony like he was doing something wrong. They’d been stranded here for almost two months. What did he expect? Of course Tony wouldn’t stop _living_ and…

_And_.

He really needed to go. Now. This wasn’t right, especially not with the turmoil of feelings suddenly raging inside Steve’s mind.

It took all of his willpower to turn around and walk away. The sight of Tony so relaxed and sensual followed him all the way to the meadow, and all of Steve’s concentration went to his groin as he tried to will his erection and the images of Tony away.

The two dead rabbits were dangling from his makeshift bag, and once Steve was back at the camp, his hands worked on automatic while his mind whirled. God, he was stupid. He _wanted_ Tony. Really wanted him. How had he not noticed that before? It—it actually explained a lot, in Steve’s book, and yet, he hadn’t expected this.

It was also completely impossible. Steve would never have a chance in hell with Tony. Not after everything.

It was futile. He knew it. No question about that.

_‘I’m not that stupid.’_

“Idiot,” Steve said as he rested his elbows on his knees, then dropped his forehead onto his unbloodied wrists and sat there for a long time.

 

* * *

 

In the evening, they lay next to each other on the ratty blanket as they stared up at a crystal clear sky, millions of stars stretched out across the horizon, unfamiliar star constellations painted onto the black canopy above their heads.

He and Tony weren’t touching; a good few inches of space lay between them. It might as well be a whole mile with the way they barely talked anymore.

He could have fallen asleep, late as it was, caught next to Tony and the earth, staring out into the great beyond, feeling so impossibly small and yet so incredibly connected.

“We might be the first humans who’ve ever seen these,” Steve said at some point, because he just couldn’t stand the silence anymore. He glanced at Tony. “Isn’t that crazy?”

“Off the chart,” Tony deadpanned, his gaze fixed on some spot in the sky.

Another silence fell, and Steve pressed his eyes closed, not knowing what to do or say anymore.

Next to him, Tony inhaled audibly, sniffing the air. It was decidedly chilly, and after the storm—utterly, utterly clean.

“Uh, Steve?” Tony suddenly asked, and when Steve looked at him in confusion, he was pointing to the distant horizon. Steve followed the line of Tony’s finger and he saw a streak of green… _color…_ flickering across the sky.

“Uh,” Steve echoed eloquently.

The color was so faint at first Steve could barely see it, but it grew, expanding across the sky until it twisted and danced, shimmering like wisps of green smoke, the entire sky soon illuminated by its light, the stars beyond vanishing behind its beauty. The sight stole Steve’s breath away, his heart lodging in his throat as he looked on with wonder and more than a little awe.

“Is that an aurora?”

Tony huffed, though it sounded strangled. “ _Here?_ ”

“Or something… similar,” Steve pondered, though in that moment, he truly didn’t care how it was called; it was—breathtaking.

It was like being a kid all over again; the first thrill of discovery, the majesty of science that had always been so far beyond him. The color flared all the more bright, now pink and orange, vibrant shades of purple. In the distance, the haunting cry of animals paid homage to the sight, their calls increasing in pitch and urgency in response to the chaotic flickering in the sky.

“The lights are caused by the collision of energetically charged solar particles with atoms in the magnetosphere, causing heat and plasma emission into the thermosphere,” Tony said, his voice hushed.

Steve glanced at him, and _God_ , his heart lodged in his throat when he saw the reverent gleam in Tony’s eyes.

Tony didn’t move, not even his eyes were flickering. “They can’t stop it. Both the solar particles and the molecules in the planet’s atmosphere are directed by the magnetic field. They’re colliding, causing each other to burst into lights. It needs a very specific set of circumstances to bring them together, but once those circumstances are given, they create… _this_.”

“It’s beautiful,” Steve said, and it was. It really really was.

Tony smiled, a small little thing. “Some would call it destructive.”

“And you?”

There was a pinch between Tony’s brows. It took him a long moment to answer, and when he did, it was barely a whisper.

“Probably both.”

 

* * *

 

It was another three days later when a loud crack echoed across the clearing.

Next to him, Tony jerked bolt upright. They’d been sleeping in the shelter, or not-sleeping, in Steve’s case. It was a bit pathetic, the endless minutes Steve had been staring at the wall in front of him as he listened to Tony’s breathing.

He was far out of his comfort zone, and he’d always been scared by that. Feeling so strongly about someone was both the most exhilarating and the most frightening thing in the entire world.

“Steve,” Tony said, loud and firm, and then he was jostling his shoulder.

He turned around, searching for whatever danger Tony might have seen. “What?”

“There.”

Tony was pointing to the wreckage of the tower. Just a few meters to its right, a thin, burning line was beginning to form in the air.

Something stilled inside Steve, and he knew what it was, it just took him a moment to find the right words.

“They’ve found us.”

Tony nodded, staring at him. They should probably be up and running by now, and it was stupid—stupid to even think it, but a part of Steve… didn’t want to leave.

“We gotta go,” Tony said, and it might be wishful thinking, but Steve thought some of what he was feeling was reflecting in Tony’s gaze, too.

Another crack, this one louder, and as they whirled around, the portal was quickly reaching its maximum size. If they hesitated any longer, they’d be stranded here for good.

“Go!” Steve said, and leaped to his feet.

Together, they ran towards the widening portal. A turmoil of blazing white light and heavy wind was blasting out of the rift. In the middle of it, Steve could just barely make out a form—a bearded man with a red cape waving a hand urgently and shouting something Steve couldn’t hear over the howl of the wind.

Midway, Steve turned around, realizing that he’d forgotten his shield.

“Steve, come on!”

“Go!” Steve yelled.

“Not without you!

Steve snatched the shield—and the remains of the Iron Man armor—, then came running towards Tony.

Tony urgently held out a hand to him, the same way that the man in the portal was holding out a hand to Tony. It was Strange, Steve realized, and Tony was waiting until he caught Steve’s hand and only then whirled and reached for Strange’s.

Strange caught his wrist with both hands and hauled. Steve struggled against the raging wind, then fell through the portal.

There was a brief moment of wrenching disorientation and then Steve was no longer in the red clearing. He was standing in a strange room that looked like a library, with shelves and counters all around.

They were back, Steve realized. He stumbled a little, before sitting down on the floor. Tony did the same a few feet away from him, and when he caught his gaze—a carefully shielded, composed gaze—Steve knew that everything was going to change now.


	4. Chapter 4

Several different voices were yelling at them. “Where were you?”— _"Is that Stark?_ ”—”Are you alright?”—”Is everything okay?”—”Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Steve murmured when he caught Bucky’s worried gaze. “I…”

Oh God, his head was spinning. Next to him, he saw Tony struggle, clearly bewildered as first Pepper then Rhodey pulled him to his feet and hugged him.

“Back up a little,” Steve warned them. “He needs a little breathing space. Just give him a minute, will you? We haven’t been around other people for a while.”

“‘For a while’?” Natasha asked, clearly surprised.

“You’ve only been gone three days,” Bucky added.

As that information sunk in, Steve tried sitting up on the floor. This dimension-travelling-business really wasn’t something he looked forward to doing again. Ever. His head was spinning, he felt slightly nauseous, and he had a hard time really grasping what had happened.

_Three days?_

“No,” Steve said at last, shaking his head. “It wasn’t three days. It was a little over two months. Maybe more. We stopped counting at some point.”

Rhodey frowned as he looked at Tony. “For us, it’s only been three days since the two of you fell through the portal. We wasted time trying to find the right one. Stephen managed to identify it today and we opened it right away.”

“Time went faster there, then,” Bruce conjectured. Steve only now saw him standing a little ways off, leaning against the wall. He looked disheveled, as if he hadn’t slept or even changed clothes in days.

Strange nodded. “That’s not uncommon. The flow of time has always been unsteady at best.”

“Seems so,” Steve stated.

“Two months? And you were together the whole time?” Rhodey asked, his tone veering on the edge to threatening. As he spoke, his eyes were on Steve, and only then, he looked at Tony, who had a hand over his eyes, as if fighting off a headache.

Steve nodded. “Yeah.”

“Wonder they’re still alive,” he heard Clint murmur somewhere in the back of the room. It clearly hadn’t been meant for everyone’s ears, but Steve had heard him loud and clear. He fought off the need to defend themselves—to tell everyone that they hadn’t in fact fought at all. Not… _much…_ at least. Lesser than would’ve been expected, all things considered.

He had a feeling, though, that no one would believe him. They’d barely talked before, had barely managed at look at one another, and for the others, it had only been three days.

What could _possibly_ change in three days?

And Tony still just stood there, saying nothing. There was really no way to tell what went on in his head, if he was maybe already trying to forget about what had happened between them. And in the wake of his stillness, Steve had to admit to himself that… that they hadn’t really resolved much of anything, had they? Ever since they’d all come back together to fight Thanos, he’d only tip-toed around the real issue, too afraid to say something wrong and break the fragile truce between them. And being stranded together in that dimension, being so close, finally seeing Tony for who he really was—it had changed _everything_ for Steve.

But for Tony?

Christ, he wasn’t even looking at him anymore.

Maybe he was already letting go, cutting Steve out of his life again.

With a heavy heart, Steve stood up and turned around, finally taking in his surroundings. The whole team was there—each and every one of them: Wanda, and Vision, and Peter, and Scott, and even T’Challa. It was both a bit much and strangely heartwarming, that they’d all been working together to get them back.

The library, however—Steve didn’t recognize this room. The slightly dusty books, the dark ceiling-high shelves, the old desk. It looked like some kind of time capsule, closer to what Steve had been used to in the 40s. He hadn’t been here before, though something about this place rang familiar anyway.

“Why are we here?” Tony asked, as if reading Steve’s thoughts. He had looked up at last, his hand falling from his face, even though he still didn’t look at Steve—or anyone, for that matter. He only stared at the space around him, some sort of shadow falling over his eyes.

“I knew you wouldn’t like it,” Pepper said, her voice mildly apologetic. “But the tower’s… well. We moved everything we could salvage to the mansion. It was the only remotely private space in New York that’s large enough for the whole team. It’s temporary, I’m already looking into alternate solutions.”

Steve could see Tony’s expression tightening. “I see,” he said in acknowledgement, and not much else.

The mansion? It took Steve a moment to gather what that meant, but when he did, Tony’s reaction made a lot of sense. What Steve had taken for a library must really be Howard’s old office.

“You must be hungry,” Pepper prompted tentatively. “And you’ll want to change your clothes. We could order something you like… watch a movie. Or if you want to sleep first—”

“Coffee,” Tony said, as if only now remembering it was an option again.

It had Steve smile; he couldn’t help it.

Rhodes grinned. “And a razor, huh?”

“Yeah man, you look _weird_ ,” Clint agreed.

Tony brushed a hand over his chin, as if only now remembering that he didn’t exactly look like he usually did. “Right.”

Steve almost wanted to ask him not to shave—he had grown strangely fond of that beard, as unkempt and wild as it was, but he knew Tony would want to go back to normal as soon as possible.

He needed to respect that.

“A razor sounds good.” Tony’s voice was quiet. For the first time since arriving here, his gaze flickered to Steve, and there was something there—something cautious and uncertain—but he looked away again before Steve could even try to figure out what it was.

“Are you _sure_ you’re alright?” Rhodes asked, now looking at Steve as well, though his gaze was much more piercing. The unspoken question of whether or not Steve had done anything to hurt Tony hung in the air, but of course it wouldn’t be voiced while he was still around.

By all means, Steve was used to Rhodes and Pepper distrusting him. They had their reasons and that had been fine—until now. _Now_ , Steve realized they were the best friends of the man he wanted to have at his side in any way said man wanted to be. And there was every chance that they would never accept him. They would never accept him at all.

“I’m good,” Tony said. “Just a bit tired.”

“Two months, huh?” Pepper said, momentarily glancing at Steve as well. “Sounds hard.”

Tony cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Speaking of…” He looked at Strange. “Do you know where we were? The dimension, I mean—”

“Vanaheim,” Strange answered. “One of the Nine Realms.”

“Thor said it was storm season,” Bruce added. “He was worried you wouldn’t find shelter. The planet mostly consists of—”

“Forests,” Steve finished. “Yeah, we noticed.”

“Yes,” Bruce agreed. “Thor’s still looking for you. I’ll try and contact him.”

“Come on, Tones,” Rhodes prompted, putting a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “We fixed up your old room for you.”

“Oh _wonderful_ ,” Tony said, voice dripping with sarcasm, but he made to walk to the exit anyway, followed by Pepper, Rhodes and Vision. There was a moment of hesitation as he stood in the doorway, the slightest pause in his steps, but eventually he left without looking back.

Well, Steve thought as he stared after him. Maybe it shouldn’t be as surprising… how fast things could settle back to how it had been before. With the two of them taking opposing directions as soon as they were given the chance.

But somehow it… was.

“Steve?” Bucky prompted quietly and his gaze was far too insightful.

When Steve looked up, he realized they were mostly alone now, with only Natasha, Clint, Sam and Bucky lingering near him and Strange packing books and ingredients he’d probably used to open the portal at the far end of the room.

“Man, you look like someone died,” Sam said, frowning. “What _happened?_ ”

Steve shook his head. “It’s fine,” he dismissed. “Is there somewhere I can change? Take a shower?”

“Sure. We’re all living here right now,” Bucky explained. “We wanted to wait for you to decide what to do next.”

“For me?” Steve asked, frowning. “What do you mean?”

Sam shrugged. “We figured you wouldn’t want to stay here, after everything’s said and done. And we’ll go where you go.”

 _Ah_.

The thought was not as reassuring as it probably should be. He didn’t want the others to rely on him like that. Not when he was this unsettled, this off his game. What good would he do them when all he wanted to do right now was pick up his old bike from his apartment in Brooklyn and just see where it would take him?

He wanted to… God, he wanted to _leave_. To lick his wounds in peace, and not have anyone pity him for having fallen for the one person who would likely rather stop dating altogether before they would give _him_ a shot.

Taking a deep breath, Steve forced a smile to his lips. “Well, right now I’m going to take a shower, so…”

“Yeah, you can do _that_ by yourself,” Bucky finished, grinning. He clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder, pulling him into a hug. “Good to have you back. We were worried.”

Sam nodded. “On a scale of one to ten, how weird was it to be stranded in another dimension with Stark of all people? I mean, did you guys even talk?”

“We dealt with it like adults,” Steve said, pointedly ignoring the snort coming from Clint’s direction. “End of the story.” He pressed his shield in Bucky’s hands. “Shower?”

“Second floor, third door to the right is your room,” Natasha said.

“Make sure to take the right door,” Sam added. “This place is ridiculous. I already got lost twice.”

“I’ll try my best,” Steve said, and made to turn around. Only then he remembered himself, and looked at Stephen Strange. “Thanks for getting us back.”

“Least I could do,” Strange answered curtly. The crooked smile on his lips was a little unsettling, something in his expression looking almost amused, but Steve decided he was probably just imagining things.

He spared the rest of his team a grateful glance as well, then walked out of the room. Outside, a huge stairway led to a second floor. There was a giant chandelier hanging at the ceiling, and lots of famous paintings decorating the wall.

This was where Tony had grown up, Steve realized, and while the whole mansion was clearly equipped with a high-quality interior, it felt strangely… impersonal.

The house was completely quiet aside from the low murmurs back in the library. Tony and the others were nowhere to be seen.

For almost two months, they’d been together every day, almost every hour of the day. They’d slept and eaten and laughed together. And just like that, it was over.

God, he already missed him.

Steve heaved a great sigh, walking up the stairs. And if he pressed a hand over his heart, trying to hold himself together while he very much wanted to just fall apart… well…

No one would see it.

 

* * *

 

Three days later, Steve walked up to his temporary room in Tony’s mansion. It was midnight, and he’d just returned from helping with construction work in the city center.

There was… so much to do. The city was a mess, and while the Maria Stark Foundation and numerous other charity foundations and private donors had given plenty of money, it would take a lot of time and work to restore New York to its former glory.

Steve hadn’t even unpacked his few belongings yet and he’d already decided he wouldn’t. With all of these feelings raging inside him, he knew that being so close to Tony and not close at all would be something he couldn’t endure for long.

He would stick around in New York, keep helping with cleanup and rebuild as much as he possibly could, but he would do that from his own apartment in Brooklyn. Staying here, seeing Tony all the time while he was his politely distanced self again, it was an impossible thing.

Though, of course, he hadn’t really _seen_ Tony ever since their return. After he’d left with Pepper and Rhodes, Steve hadn’t heard of him again. From Natasha, he knew that Tony’d agreed to hold a press conference about their fight against Thanos in a day or two, and from an offhanded comment from Peter to Vision, he had gathered that Tony was already back to tinkering in his makeshift workshop, designing tools and components for reconstruction work, building things for Stark Industries or working on Avengers gear.

At the end of the day, it didn’t matter what Tony did with his time—he very clearly didn’t want to talk to Steve, or even see him, and that was all that mattered.

A part of Steve wasn’t sure anymore if the last two months had even transpired the way he remembered they had. If he and Tony had really been as close as it had felt to Steve—or if he’d maybe read the situation completely wrong. He certainly still remembered holding Tony close during the storms, or swimming with him in the river. He remembered Tony telling him about how he’d become Iron Man, and he remembered soft smiles and even softer looks.

It was as if he was constantly reliving a long-lost dream—as if he hadn’t truly found a way to wake up yet.

Steve heaved a low breath, taking that last step of the stairwell, and stopped when he saw Natasha leaning next to his door.

“Can this wait till tomorrow?” he asked, slowing his steps. “I’ve been working the whole day.”

“Tony’s in your room,” Natasha said.

Steve stilled. His eyes flickered towards the door, as his mind drew a blank. “What?”

“He asked where you were, and when Bucky told him you were out, he walked up here and went into your room. That was four hours ago.”

“Ah,” Steve said, taking a deep breath, not knowing what to think about that. “And you’re telling me that, why?”

“Because I care about you,” Natasha said with one of her teasing smiles that Steve both loved and loathed in equal parts. “Both of you. Even if Tony doesn’t want to hear it.”

“Natasha…” he started, sighing. He had no idea how she did this—always knowing what was going on in Steve’s head.

She held up a hand in a placating gesture. “I’m not asking for details, I just wanted you to know that whatever happened between the two of you… it’s your life. I think you should finally start thinking about yourselves. Put yourselves first, that’s all.”

Steve shook his head. “You know we can’t do that.”

Natasha sighed, clearly exasperated. “Aren’t you tired of letting all those chances going to waste?”

The words hit right home—as Natasha had intended them to, of course.

“Yes,” Steve admitted. “Of course I am. But—”

“The world will see a new day without either of your help,” Natasha said. She pushed herself off the wall and walked over to him, a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve done enough.”

“Want me to retire so badly, Romanoff?” Steve asked with a smile.

“I want you to be happy,” Natasha said, her voice serious. “None of us have been particularly happy as of late. And you and Tony… I thought after everything, you would _never_ be able to overcome that. It would be nice to know that maybe something good can come out of all the bad.”

Steve let loose a half-sigh, half-chuckle. He looked down at Natasha, and not for the first time in his life, he wished to get a glimpse of how her mind worked. “How do you always know?”

“I’ve been trying to set you up with someone for _years_. I know the signs.” She pressed a kiss against Steve’s cheek. “It’s not as crazy as you might think it is.”

“Feels pretty crazy to me,” Steve admitted.

A crooked smile. “It’s Tony. What did you expect?”

Steve opened his mouth to say something in return, but eventually he had to admit that, yes, she did have a point there.

Natasha made to leave, but after a few steps, she paused. “Oh, and, Steve?”

“Yeah?” he asked, hand on the doorknob.

“Whatever you decide—the team will deal with it. Whether we’re all staying here, or if we’re splitting up again… or if the two of you decide to take a timeout… we can deal with it. You don’t have to worry about that.”

That had Steve smile—a real smile now. He wasn’t sure yet if he _wanted_ to leave, but somehow, it was a comforting thought—to know that he _could_.

 

* * *

 

When Steve walked into his room, he immediately spotted a brown haired head glinting in the moonlight. Tony was sitting in the big reading chair, facing the windows in a way that hid his face from Steve.

A pleasant baritone sang, “ _Got another empty bottle. And another empty bed…_ ”

Steve blinked. Tony was singing, low and quiet. Something from the eighties from the sound of it.

“ _Ain’t too young to admit it. And I’m not too old to lie…_ ”

“Tony,” Steve called softly. “What are you doing here?”

Tony turned around and cast him a wide, mocking grin. The first thing Steve noticed was that his goatee was as sharp and meticulous as ever, and he definitely still seemed to be tired. “Live here, don’t I?” he said. “My house. Bit messed up, but mine.”

Steve drew a deep breath. “Look, I planned to leave tomorrow. I’ve meant to tell you.”

“Leave?” he echoed, then huffed. “Great. A toast to that.” Tony saluted him with a bottle, which—as Steve saw only now—was mostly empty.

“You’re drunk,” he realized.

“Getting there.” Tony upended the bottle, took another huge swig, leaned back against the chair and started to sing again. “ _I’m just another empty head. That’s why I’m lonely… I’m so lonely… But I know what I’m gonna do…_ ”

“Tony, for heaven’s sake, would you stop it?”

“‘s a good song. Did you know the songwriter died in the back seat of a car on his ride home, quietly choking on his own vomit?”

“If you say so,” Steve said, irritated. He walked up to him, reaching for his arms to pull him to his feet.

Tony grinned at him provokingly. “Can’t keep your hands off me, can you?”

Steve almost shoved him away in frustration. Instead, he kept one hand on Tony’s back to keep him steady, while he used his other to pull the bottle out of Tony’s grasp. “That’s your solution to everything, isn’t it?” he asked him. “Can’t deal with something, just mock it.”

“Don’t need to mock anything. We’re already the funniest punch line I’ve ever heard.”

Steve sighed. “You’re right about that one. Come on, we’ll get you to your room, you can sleep it off there.”

He surely wouldn’t talk to Tony about any kind of _feelings_ when he was completely out of it.

Wrapping a hand around Tony’s arm, he started walking him to the door, but stopped in his tracks when Tony said, “I know you watched me in the river.”

The words completely floored Steve. “What?”

“You watched me,” Tony clarified as he leaned up, his face provokingly close to Steve’s. When he spoke, his breath reeked of alcohol. “I saw your reflection in the water.”

Steve swallowed and didn’t know what to say. He’d almost forgotten about the day at the river, that moment of revelation when he’d seen Tony touch himself.

Tony clearly expected an answer, so he forced himself to say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“Then why did you?”

“I just wanted to get a drink. You surprised me.”

That had Tony huff at him, sounding almost angry. “That’s all?”

“What else do you want to hear?”

“I…” Tony put his hands up to his head, shaking it. “I don’t know.”

Steve sighed. “I’m tired, Tony. I’ve come to the end of my rope with you. I thought we were becoming friends again, I thought you were maybe ready to try and be in a team with me. But then you completely pushed me away and I just… I think it’s better if I leave for good.”

“You’re Cap’n America,” Tony said, as if that meant anything. “You don’t leave.”

“I’ve done my job,” Steve replied.

“This is crazy,” Tony snapped. “All of it. Why would you want to leave now?”

“Tell me one thing that’s keeping me here.”

There was a beat of silence. Then, with an angered groan, Tony pressed a hand to his forehead and freed himself from Steve. He walked away, obviously trying to find stability in the middle of all this confusion. After a moment of contemplation, however, he once more walked towards the bottle of whatever alcohol he had been drinking and finished off the remaining quarter in one single chug-a-lug. Then, he flung the bottle away and flopped onto Steve’s sofa. “I’m gonna get some sleep.”

Steve stood there, having no idea what to do. “Here?”

“What,” Tony asked, that mocking grin back in place. “You suddenly peculiar about sleeping next to me?”

 _I miss sleeping next to you like you have no idea,_ Steve thought, and tried not to let any of that longing show in his expression.

“Fine, you can sleep on the couch,” he muttered, as he put Tony’s feet on the couch, then walked to his bedroom to fetch a blanket.

“Oh thanks for letting me sleep on _my_ couch,” Tony snapped, even as he was already sinking into the cushion.

“Must be your irresistible charm and good looks,” Steve deadpanned. He put the blanket around Tony’s body, tucking him in. He kept a hand on Tony’s shoulder for a moment, and couldn’t find the strength to stop himself from rubbing the tense muscles.

Tony was already drifting off, though, and after a few minutes, Steve got up and went to his bedroom. He didn’t move once he’d lain down, still fully dressed, only staring at the wall in front of him.

 

* * *

 

When Steve woke up in the morning, Tony was still lying flat on the couch. He’d yanked off his shirt sometime during the night, but otherwise he was still fully dressed, down to his shoes.

He looked peaceful, and Steve stood there for a long time, watching him sleep. It was hard to figure out why he hadn’t seen it before—how vulnerable Tony really was. He’d been blindsided by the pomp and glamour, by the clever words and easy grins. Tony hadn’t made it easy to look beyond all that.

Or maybe Steve hadn’t tried hard enough.

Whatever it was—it was obviously too late now to do anything about it.

Maybe it was really best to leave.

He tried to stay quiet as he gathered his things and put them into the small duffle bag that still leaned against the wall next to the door. There wasn’t much he had to take with him, he’d mostly buy everything he needed on the road.

When he was done, Steve gently shook Tony awake. A part of him would’ve preferred to simply walk out of the door and leave without having this conversation. He’d already told Bucky and Sam about his plans—his wish to have a bit of time for himself, before the three of them made any plans for the nearer future. The city lay in shambles, yes, but now that all missing persons had officially been found either dead or alive, Steve couldn’t be much of help aside from carrying rubble around. And he couldn’t really think about what he wanted to do with his life from here on out, either. Not when he was so very clearly not done processing what had happened in the last few weeks.

“Hey,” Steve called as he put a hand on Tony’s shoulder, “wake up. Rise and shine.”

Tony rolled over and opened one bleary eye. “Can’t you let a man die in peace?” he grumbled.

The queasy look had Steve smile. “No. Come on, get up.”

Tony heaved himself into a sitting position, braced on one straight arm, then nearly folded over again.

“Oh God, my head. Oh _God_ , I’m sober.” He looked as if he was nearly going to weep at the thought. “Shit. What did you have to sober me up for? Now I’ve got to do it all over again.”

“Do what? Get drunk?”

“Yeah. Oh _Jesus_.”

“How long have you been drunk?” Steve asked, suddenly worried.

“Depends on what day… it… is,” Tony offered, tough he seemed to realize midway that Steve wouldn’t like that answer. “I had a hard time settling in,” he explained with a grimace. “I’m still finding pine needles everywhere I go.”

Steve couldn’t help it; he had to smile at the disgruntled look on Tony’s face. “So did I,” he admitted, then added, “about settling in, I mean.” His gaze fell on the duffle bag, and he took a deep breath. “Look, Tony, I… I didn’t want to leave just like that. Not after everything. Wanted to say goodbye at least.”

Tony blinked. “Goodbye?”

Of course he didn’t remember. This was going to be great. “Yes—I’m gonna leave. Still got that apartment in Brooklyn, so I won’t be far away. I’ll leave the city for two or three weeks, but after that, I’ll be ready on call.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Thought about camping,” Steve said, trying for another little smile.

Tony cast him a surprised look. “Camping,” he echoed. “ _Really?_ ”

“It wasn’t so bad.”

Tony said nothing for a moment, then, “You don’t have to do that. Leave, I mean.”

“I know,” Steve said. “But we both know it’s not good for me to stay.”

Steve watched Tony out of the corner of his eye, worried at how quiet and subdued he suddenly was, wishing so badly to know what was going on in his head.

Tony nodded, his jaw clenching a little. “And then what?” he asked.

“I’ll be here for the big emergencies. About the rest… I’m not sure yet.”

Tony’s mouth pressed into a thin line. He had a hand at his temple, rubbing circles into his skin to lessen the pain. “You realize that all you’re doing is putting a Band-Aid over the problem. Everyone has to face their demons at one point.”

“Trust me, I’m working on it,” Steve said quietly.

Tony frowned down at the floor, still not looking directly at him. His mouth started to shape the word ‘Why?’, then he changed his mind before articulating it and shrugged. “Do whatever you want,” he said curtly. “I’m going to the shop. Suit still needs repairing.”

Steve nodded, watching Tony as he stood up. “I’ll be gone by midday.”

Tony nodded as well. He turned around, made to leave, then stopped and faced Steve again. “If this is about me—I’m not even going to be around much in the mansion anyway. We wouldn’t have to see each other often.”

Steve stared at him. Tony’s wide brown eyes were unfathomable, impossible to tell what went on in Tony’s mind.

“I’m not going to ask anything from you,” he managed to say. “I certainly won’t ask you to stay away from your own home. I just need some time for myself, and after that… I—I want to make it work.”

“‘It’?” Tony asked, cautious.

“The team. I want the team to have a chance.” Swallowing, Steve forced himself to go on—to finally say the words that had resonated in his mind for so long. “The Avengers are important. Back with the Accords, I shouldn’t have given up on us so easily. You tried hard to find a way and I just… I dug my heels in. I still think I was right—about not signing the Accords right away. Hell, they barely gave us the time to read the damn thing, but… I see now that I sacrificed everything else on the way. And I understand that I’ve lost my right to make any demands. I’m willing to play by your rules now.”

Tony huffed. “You’re no rule follower. I think we’ve established that.”

“Maybe not,” Steve agreed. “But I really do want to make it work. I want for everyone to be okay again. To be okay with each other again. And I think they can be. If that means I’ll live somewhere else, I’ll do it.”

It was _killing_ him, to know he had to keep his distance when he really wanted to wrap his arms around Tony and keep him as close as possible. But if this made it easier on him, if he needed Steve to stay away, he’d do it.

“I see,” Tony said. When Steve’s gaze snapped back to him, he wasn’t looking at him anymore, but instead to the window.

“Did I say something wrong?” Steve asked when he noticed the sudden stiffness in Tony’s posture.

“No,” Tony shot back, and Steve instantly knew he was lying. “Sounds like a solid plan. We’ll only see each other as often as we absolutely need to, and that’s that.”

That was—not what Steve had wanted to achieve. “Tony…”

“No, it’s good. Great even. We won’t have to pretend then.”

Steve had absolutely no idea whatsoever how their conversation could’ve gone south so fast. He just stood there, unable to find words.

“Well, as I said, I have work to do,” Tony announced, casting Steve a strained smile as he walked towards the door again. “Have a good trip, wherever you’re going.”

“Thank you,” Steve said quietly.

They held their gazes a moment longer, then Tony nodded and left the room for good. For a long while, Steve just stood there, staring at nothing in particular. He had no idea why Tony looked so _hurt_ by Steve’s decision. If he wanted him to stay, he could’ve said so, couldn’t he? He obviously hadn’t wanted Steve around, he was glad not to see him every day anymore.

They’d gone their separate ways again, just like before. For Tony, this wouldn’t make a difference.

With that in mind, Steve grabbed his bag and made to say goodbye to his teammates, and only about an hour later, he left the mansion behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! Thanks so much for the lovely feedback, I'm so happy you like the story so far. Final chapter will be up sometime next week.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve barely spent ten minutes in his old apartment before he hit the road again. He only packed a few more clothes and got a bit of cash, then slipped on his leather jacket and rolled his bike out of the underground garage.

He took the 87 to Albany, not really knowing where to go, or what to do when he got there. He had booked a place for the next few days, but apart from that, he’d just see where the road would take him. It was sunny outside, an early summer day, and a gentle wind blew past him as he sped up. The last time he’d done this had been right after the Chitauri attack. He’d felt unfathomably lost then, and he could very well admit that it was the same now, around six years later.

In the depths of his mind, he often asked himself what he’d done wrong—why he’d never managed to find a place for himself. Somewhere to belong and someone to come home to. He’d long ago made his peace with the fact that not everyone was made for a steady relationship, and he was apparently part of that group, but he just…

He still _wanted_ to belong, and maybe that was the whole problem. Maybe it was time to finally accept the cards he’d been dealt, instead of running in circles for the rest of his life.

After he’d passed Albany, he exited the freeway and drove a little through the countryside. When he came by a diner, he decided to grab something to eat and parked his bike. There were only one or two guests, and Steve greeted the young waitress on his way in, keeping the sunglasses on for the time being. People usually respected his privacy, or didn’t recognize him in the first place, but he didn’t want to risk it today.

He walked to the far end of the diner, sat down at a secluded table and stared at the menu for a while. He hadn’t really decided what to get yet when the waitress came to take his order.

“Uh, I’ll just… I’ll have a burger and fries, please,” he decided—couldn’t really go wrong with a burger—and handed her the menu.

“Make that twice,” a voice behind him said.

Steve turned around, wide-eyed, just as the waitress said, “Oh my God, you’re T—”

“Incognito,” Tony interrupted, casting the girl one of his dazzling smiles as he put a finger on his lips. “Just ignore us, please?”

“Oh, of—of course,” she said. “Two burgers. Be right back.”

“Take your time.”

“Take—” She looked between Tony and Steve. “Sure, Mister St—”

“Still incognito,” Tony interrupted with an amused smile.

When she left, clearly bewildered, Tony sat down in the booth across from Steve, not pulling off his sunglasses either. For a few beats, they simply stared at each other, before Steve blurted, “What are you _doing_ here?”

“You said you were going camping,” Tony said easily. “I was down in my shop, and then I thought—hey, that’s actually a good idea. I hate staying at the mansion and I always wanted to go camping, you know—with actual camping equipment.”

“I don’t have any camping equipment.”

“Ah,” Tony said, momentarily flustered. “Well—We can always buy something. Or we make do with what we have, right? We managed pretty well the last time.”

“We did,” Steve confirmed, the thoughts in his head running wild. Then, he remembered something. “And the press conference?”

“Rhodey will take over for me.”

Steve raised a brow. “He must’ve loved that.”

“Oh he was delighted.” Tony tried for a grin, and didn’t quite succeed.

Steve stared at him—at the red sunglasses, the expensive jacket, the jittery tapping of Tony’s fingers on the table in front of him, and it was then that he realized, with a sudden jolt, that Tony was _nervous_.

“Tony,” he prompted, pulling off his glasses, and looking at him in question. “I don’t understand.”

Tony followed suit with his own glasses, and his eyes were tense. His lips were pressed into a tight, straight line, the corners pointed with strain. “I liked it,” he said, as if forcing the words out.

Steve frowned. “Liked what?”

“Back in the other dimension. We talked, looked out for each other, you were… you were so approachable. You listened to me, you were always there and… I liked that.”

By now, Steve was sure he was outright gaping. “You were the one who left as soon as we were back home!”

“I was not!” Tony denied, then back paddled. “Okay, maybe I was. But you _let_ me.”

Steve grimaced, though he tried to hide it. Tony did have a point there, he hadn’t exactly put up much of a fight. “I was sure you were glad to be rid of me,” he explained quietly. “I was still surprised how well we… how good it was. Us, together, I mean. That you were willing to stick around, work together, after everything. And when we came back, I guess I just thought that… that I had no right to force you into spending time with me if you didn’t want to. It was very clear that you were avoiding me… and I wanted to respect that.”

Tony huffed as he waved a hand at himself. “Steve… seriously. When exactly did you get the impression that I was _any_ good at handling… emotional stuff, feelings and shit. I mean, did you _ever_ talk with Pepper?”

“No?”

“Well, if you had she would’ve told you that I’m… that I have this tendency, about pushing people away when I—when I want the opposite. That I tend to overanalyze things until it can’t possibly be a good thing anymore. I tend to—Fuck, Steve, when it comes to people I tend to run away from my problems. Even you should know me well enough by now to know that.”

Steve blinked. “So I’m a problem?”

Tony’s gaze softened. “You’re a really big problem.”

There was a beat of silence, and as soon as those words truly registered in Steve’s head, they made his heartbeat quicken. He couldn’t really—Tony couldn’t really be saying what Steve thought he was saying, could he? But then again… he’d come all the way here, probably ordering FRIDAY to track him down, not even changing clothes, as far as Steve could see.

This was Tony coming after him, Steve realized.

“And right now, you’re trying to run away too,” Tony continued, “which—as Natasha so kindly put it—apparently makes both of us the most emotionally stunted persons on this planet.”

“Natasha’s a clever one,” Steve replied, his voice steady even as his heart sped up to a frantic rhythm. He felt a small smile steal its way to his lips.

Tony returned the smile in kind, then put his right hand onto the table, right in the middle, looking at Steve in question.

“And you want to go… camping,” Steve said, looking at the offered hand. “With me.”

“Yes,” Tony agreed. “In fact, I think that… you and me going camping is a really great idea. Unexpected, maybe. But great.”

“You didn’t always think that.”

“No,” Tony admitted. “Certainly not. But then I didn’t know how… life-changing… camping with you could be.” He huffed, at himself maybe, or at the whole metaphor. “Also, you know… we recently fought a warlord from outer space, we met a speaking tree, and a raccoon with an even bigger mouth than me. You’re… _100_ years old, and I—” He heaved a big breath. “I’m a broken man who lived too hard and loved too little and here I sit, and if my mind isn’t playing tricks on me, Captain America might have a bit of a thing for me anyway. So obviously—stranger things do happen, and, in comparison, going camping with you… doesn’t sound so strange at all.”

“You’re not broken,” Steve whispered.

Tony snorted and rolled his eyes. “Of course that’s what you'd take from that. I’m basically declaring my feelings for you and _this_ is what I get.”

Steve smiled—or _beamed_ , probably. Tony _was_ declaring his feelings. Those weeks might’ve been just as much an eye-opener for him as they had been for Steve. Maybe he wasn’t alone in this sudden turmoil of feelings after all.

“After Pepper,” Tony continued, a pinch between his brows, “and then again after the mess that was Sokovia and the Accords and _you_ , mostly you, I thought I was done with it all. Committing to something, especially people. And I was fine with that, and it _figures_ that once I find some peace of mind, you come along—once again—to mess it all up. So I was angry, at myself, mostly, but I’ve been angry at you for so long that it just felt easier to stick to that, and I…” He trailed off, his eyes large and uncertain. “Could you please say something? Tell me I’m not completely crazy? ‘Cause a part of me is still expecting you to laugh at me any second.”

Steve gathered all the courage he had—the courage that always came so easily on the battlefield, but not when it came to matters of the heart. It felt like he was baring himself, making himself oddly vulnerable, and he’d never liked that feeling. And yet… not risking this—not risking himself—felt worse than knowing he’d never given it a try.

So he leaned forward and took Tony’s hand in his. He brushed its back with his thumb, a delicate, helpless touch. “You’re not crazy, I would never laugh at you and… And I would love to try. Camping… and the other thing, too.”

Tony visibly swallowed, though he didn’t move away. “This could backfire real bad. I just feel the need to say it once for the record, so you can’t blame me later.”

“It could,” Steve agreed, though he didn’t truly believe that. They’d already been brought to their lowest. And he’d learned from his mistakes. He caught Tony’s eyes and held his gaze. “It could also be amazing.”

Tony grimaced. “We almost killed each other.”

“Leaves room for improvement,” Steve offered, and because Tony had yet to say ‘No’, he took that tiny opening and leaned forward even more.

Tony’s eyes widened the barest of fractions as he caught Steve’s movement. And still—he didn’t pull back. Instead, there was now a mad gleam in his eyes. Steve stilled momentarily, savoring this moment, taking in the sheer incredibility of it.

Tony was already closing his eyes when Steve neared him and then there was a warm hand at his neck, drawing him in.

“Last chance to cop out,” Tony murmured.

Steve took a steady breath. “No,” he whispered and kissed him.

His throat worked as he touched his lips to Tony’s. It was… it was sweet, scarily, thrillingly sweet. They were leaning over the table a bit awkwardly, their lips touching, and he felt Tony’s breath on his skin, a finger brushing along his chin. When he felt the tip of a tongue, he opened his mouth without a thought, and was rewarded when Tony made a painful, inarticulate sound in the back of his throat. It seemed to be the thing finally bringing Steve out of his daze, and his hands were cupping Tony’s face and he was kissing him deeply, lips clinging to Tony’s, unable to draw away.

Steve was instantly drunk on sensation, the taste of Tony, the feel of him, the long slides of that sinful, experienced tongue against his own. _Why haven’t we done this sooner,_ came to mind, but Tony angled his face just so, fingertips digging into Steve’s skin, and then Steve didn’t think much anymore.

Tony’s mouth slanted across his, and there was no reservation now. Nothing, except softness and heat, and the dizzy, breathless sensation it left him with.

This was… this was everything he’d ever hoped to get from a kiss. Butterflies in his stomach, a need for more that made itself home in every part of his body. The sheer _want_ of something that felt so much bigger than him, and the gratitude to just be here, to be able to touch Tony like this—all wrapped in one.

He had always wanted this, to feel someone smile against his lips out of pure joy, and never in his life would he have expected this person to be Tony, but… in this moment he felt blind for not seeing it earlier.

When he drew back and opened his eyes again, the vivid brown of Tony’s eyes was dark with heat and intensity, his pupils a bit dilated.

_Beautiful_.

Tony’s hands were drifting along Steve’s face as he leaned back. “Who would’ve thought,” he murmured, chuckling when Steve immediately stole another kiss from him. He couldn’t help it. There was a fierce happiness trying to push to the surface, and Steve had a hard time keeping himself in check.

“Less weird than I thought it’d be,” Tony added.

Steve hummed in agreement. “Let me take you out to dinner,” he said.

“We kind of are having dinner right now,” Tony pointed out.

Steve rolled his eyes. “On a date, to a nice restaurant.”

“You’re gonna do this the old-fashioned way, aren't you?”

“No,” Steve said, then bravely kissed Tony for that look on his face. “But I want to make sure we’re doing it right. Got so much to make up to you.”

Tony sat back down, though he still stayed close, holding his hand again. “Look, Steve, as I said: I was mad at you for a long time. And I still wish you could’ve trusted me enough to tell me about Barnes, but I see now that maybe I didn’t give you enough reasons to do that.”

Steve sighed. “Don’t make this your fault.”

“I’m not. But—as I told you, it really does take two to tango, and had I treated you differently, you might have decided that talking about it to me beforehand would’ve been a better option.”

“Should’ve told you no matter what,” Steve said firmly. “But thank you for… trying to see it from my point of view. You didn’t have to.”

“Trying to get in your head has always been a secret hobby of mine.”

“And how did that work out for you so far?”

“I think I’m finally making headway.”

Steve hummed, finding his smile again as he once more leaned in. “I think so, too.”

 

* * *

 

“I really can’t believe you,” Tony said, shying away from Steve as he tried reaching for him. There wasn’t much room to maneuver on the steep trail however, and he ended up almost stumbling into the greenery. Steve caught him around the waist, pulling him near even as Tony glared at him. “You’ve gotten us lost in the middle of nowhere,” he complained.

Steve smiled. “I promise you we’re not lost.”

“There isn’t a real trail for miles!”

Steve shifted a little closer. Tony tried to get away again, but he was penned in all around by trees, so there was really nowhere for him to go.

“I told you, I’ve been here before. I know the way,” Steve told him, smile becoming positively smug when Tony stopped fighting him, his gaze fixating on Steve’s lips instead. He stole a kiss from him, lingering momentarily, then continued on his way. “Besides,” he called over his shoulder. “I thought you _wanted_ to go camping.”

“It was a metaphor! I didn’t actually mean we should go hiking!”

Steve chuckled. “We’re almost there.”

“You said that ten minutes ago.”

“Patience is a virtue,” Steve said. “It’ll be worth it, trust me.”

“You should’ve at least let me fly us.”

“Getting there is part of the charm.”

“Getting in your _pants_ is part of the charm.”

Steve grinned, glancing back over his shoulder again, and… Christ, Tony was just too damned attractive, gaze intense, mouth turned down into a pout that made his bottom lip look extra biteable. The fact that he was now outright flirting with him, all the subtlety from before gone, wasn’t exactly helping.

“See?” Steve said. “You already got a goal to focus on. Makes the journey so much easier. Old hiker wisdom.”

“Har har, Rogers,” Tony said.

Steve laughed and reached for Tony’s hand, trying to quicken their steps. “Come on. I know you got it in you.”

Tony groaned, but he did follow him. “You’re being unreasonably cruel when you’re supposed to be completely smitten by me.”

“I had a plan,” Steve said. “Just because you decided to blow the whole thing…”

“I _would_ be blowing a lot of things if you’d only _let_ me.”

Steve all but shook with laughter by now and the disgruntled look on Tony’s face didn’t make it any better. He pulled him near, grinning widely. “If you walk a _bit_ faster, we can make it there in twenty.”

“Minutes or hours,” Tony deadpanned.

At the end, it only took them sixteen and a half minutes before the thin trail gave way to a clearing. Just a few meters away from them, a small log cabin stood in front of thick pine trees.

Steve glanced at Tony as they both came to a halt. “I’ve stayed here for a week or two, after the Chitauri,” he explained. “A nice old lady is letting the cabin in summer. It’s very… basic, but it helped me calm down and regroup.”

Tony hummed. “And you wanted to come here now for the same reason?”

“More like hiding and wallowing in self-pity.”

The hand in Steve’s was squeezing him a little. “No reason for that now.”

Steve smiled. “No.” He guided Tony towards the door and leaned down next to a flowerpot, retrieving the key. “Come on, I’ll show you the house.”

The air was a bit stale when they walked in together, and Steve let his duffle bag drop on the floor, as he turned to Tony. “Well. That’s basically it,” he said, waving at the tiny room in general, before positioning both hands at Tony's waist. "Wanna see the rest?"

Tony grinned mischievously as he leaned up. “Absolutely not.”

Steve stumbled a bit as he was pressed against the wall next to the door, but he couldn’t care less now that Tony’s mouth was on his own again.

So this was apparently happening now. For a moment, he was a bit unsure about what he should be doing with his hands, if it was truly alright to touch Tony like he wanted to.

“Don’t be nervous,” Tony said between kisses. His own hands were less reserved, brushing along Steve’s waist, then up his back.

“Not nervous,” Steve denied, then relented. “Okay, a bit nervous.”

Truth was, he hadn’t done this in a _really_ long time, he’d never done it with a man, and more importantly: Never with someone he truly cared about and wanted to be with in the long run.

It wasn’t completely unreasonable to be at least a bit nervous about this, but he wouldn’t let that deter him.

“Just not sure I can hold up with the playboy part of Tony Stark, Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist TM.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “It’s not about holding up, and… _God_ , that was forever ago. Wasn’t even really true back then, not for a while. And it wouldn’t matter to me if you sucked at this, I mean… That’s the beauty of it, right?” He leaned back a bit, casting Steve a downright sinful grin. “We can try again… and again… and again…” The words were accompanied by more kisses, which had Steve’s knees going a bit weak. “This is supposed to be fun, not something you have to excel in.”

Steve hummed, and it was admittedly a bit childish, but instead of calming him down, Tony’s words made him want to _prove him wrong_. They made him want to have Tony stare at him in disbelief while he was so highly-strung with pleasure he could barely contain himself. So instead of letting Tony maneuver him further through the room, Steve wrapped both arms around him, and firmly led him backwards.

His eyes momentarily flickered past Tony, spotting the bedroom, then moved his arms lower and raised Tony upwards—not quite carrying him, but not far from it either.

“Oh-kay,” Tony stated, flustered for a moment, before his eyes settled back on Steve with an intense sort of heat. “That’s… infinitely hot.”

Steve said nothing, instead he gently put Tony on the bed, which was a bit dusty as well. Kneeling down next to him, he smiled, taking in his form.

“Kinda miss seeing you in that undersuit.”

That had Tony snort. “So you _were_ checking me out.”

“You designed that thing for people to check you out. It’s ridiculously tight.”

“It’s _practical_. No chafing.”

Steve hummed, smiling even broader. “It was a tease, that’s what it was.”

“And it worked.” Tony shrugged. “Are you complaining?”

“No,” Steve said as he reached forward to pull at Tony’s shirt. Tony raised himself up on his elbows, helping him, then dropped down on the mattress again. Once Tony’s chest was bared, Steve immediately leaned down, tonguing one of Tony’s nipples, pushing the soft nub inwards and smiling when Tony shivered. “I also checked you out in the river,” he confessed without looking up.

“Uh,” Tony exhaled, a half-confused, half-aroused sound, even as he arched into him, his arms wrapping around Steve’s neck. “I _knew_ it.”

Steve’s mouth slid along Tony’s collarbone from the hollow of his throat to the point of bone on his shoulder. Tony was all taut, supple muscle and fine, strong bone with olive satin skin. Steve reached out a hand and ran it over his chest and stomach. Tony shivered and the way he was looking at Steve turned his bones to water—as if he were the only thing that mattered in the whole world.

“God, I want you,” he murmured, his mouth licking down Tony’s chest, sucking at the hollow of his pelvis, first one side then the other, biting him just below his navel, so that his whole body bucked. Then, Steve’s hand pressed down on his groin, feeling the hardness beneath.

“All yours,” Tony ground out, his voice beautifully hoarse already. “But I won’t last long if you keep that up.”

“Don’t need you to last,” Steve said. “We can make the next one last.”

Tony laughed helplessly. “The ‘next one’? You realize I’m not twenty anymore, right?”

Steve moved upwards, lying down on top of Tony. They both moaned at the contact, bodies rubbing against each other. “We’ll see about that,” he said.

Laughter fell away into passion then, Tony’s mouth greedy and demanding on Steve’s, his blunt nails raking down his back.

Tony groaned when Steve’s weight pressed down on him even more. “God, you’re hard, aren’t you? Let me see you. I’ve fantasized about your dick for weeks.”

The blunt words brought a light heat to Steve’s skin.

“Months,” Tony corrected himself, as he busied himself with Steve’s belt buckle. “Or years. Let’s go with years.”

With a pleased smile, Steve pushed at Tony’s pants, trying to get them off as well. While Tony raised his hips to help him, he was also trying to shove Steve’s pants down. They struggled, getting in each other’s way.

Then, Steve’s pants were off and Tony pushed both his jeans and his briefs down. Steve groaned aloud as his cock sprang free into Tony’s hands.

Tony stilled momentarily, and the feel of his fingertips on him brought gooseflesh to Steve’s skin. “Well,” he said at last and grinned when Steve raised a brow at him in question. “I did always love a challenge.”

To emphasize his words, Tony slid his hand up and down Steve’s erection, while he rubbed his own middle against his thigh. Steve pushed back involuntarily, arching against him, and felt him hardening even further. His hands slipped under Tony, pulling him up just a little as he finally dragged his briefs down.

Some kind of guttural sound left his lips then, but he couldn’t be bothered to keep track of those things, not when Tony was finally fully bared to him. All nervousness forgotten, he freed the both of them of their remaining clothes, and what followed was slow as honey, voluptuously sensual, their lips and hands sliding over damp, shivering flesh, caressing, kneading, and biting softly.

Steve was drowning in sensation, completely lost in Tony. The world spun away quickly, and he wasn’t even aware of the bed beneath them, just the feel of Tony’s body and his mouth and his hands and his voice whispering indistinguishable endearments into his skin.

Before he could fully comprehend how they’d gotten here, he was already stretching Tony, slicked fingers moving deep inside his body. They lay next to each other with Steve half on top of Tony, kissing along his neck and shoulder as he prepped him. And being so near him—it felt both surreal and strangely like reaching the end of a long and lonesome road. Tony was panting and muttering all kinds of words as he rocked back into the sensation and Steve was utterly entranced by the sight of him—spread out and debauched for his eyes only.

It probably shouldn’t be a surprise how vocal Tony was when it came to this, but the constant stream of ‘Yeah, just like that’, and ‘Deeper, deeper please’, and more often than not ‘Steve, Steve, Steve’—Steve simply hadn’t been prepared for _those_ words uttered in _that_ voice with _those_ expressions flickering across Tony’s face.

“Goddammit,” he muttered once it got a bit too much. He stilled his movements as he tried to get himself back under control. He felt his whole self being centered to his middle, all the blood in his body going very much south, and he was _trying_ to keep himself from rutting against Tony’s leg, but deliberate or not, ever so often Tony’s leg would push upwards, pressing against him, teasing him to just give in.

“I’m good,” Tony said, once he saw what was likely a great deal of desperation on Steve’s face. “Come on—on to the main act.”

With a shaky nod, Steve’s fingers left Tony, feeling him shiver at their loss. He sat up, his hands scrambling against Tony’s thighs, pushing them up and over his hip.

He looked down, bringing himself in position, and his cock, blunt and large against that small hole made him pause.

“Easy as breathing, I promise,” Tony said, reaching for one of Steve’s hands. He pressed a kiss to its palm, and then—because it was Tony and the guy just couldn’t give you a moment to gather yourself, dammit—he moved forward, until the tip of Steve was already pressing inside.

With a groan, Steve’s eyes tracked the movement, taking in the sheer intimacy of it, before he was sinking home fully, shoving forward in one fluid movement.

Tony’s breath left him in a whoosh. Steve held perfectly still, Tony doing the same.

“Okay?” Steve asked, staring down at him as he tried to get used to the tightness and the sheer heat around him.

Tony nodded, though his body was still tense. He felt him clench and unclench around him, then wiggle his hips a little.

“Yeah,” he decided after a beat. “Yeah, okay. Move.”

Steve reached for Tony’s thighs again, drawing them apart a bit further. He pulled back, then thrust into him again experimentally. Tony pushed back, gasping. They traded another look, and after a few shallow thrusts, it seemed they came to a silent understanding. Tony shifted and suddenly, it was a whole new angle, deeper and oh _God_ , once Steve had pushed in all the way, Tony was groaning loudly, all but clinging to the sheets.

“There,” he declared and Steve swallowed, nodded in agreement, and gave his next thrust more momentum.

And this was… this was far better than what he’d expected it could ever be. It was as if they had at last found something in which they clicked even better than on the battlefield. Every move Steve made, Tony anticipated and moved with him. Every time he decided to change his rhythm, his angle, his force, Tony only grinned and met him halfway. Everything he did was met with an imminent countermove that drove him wild and urged him to move just that tiny bit faster and harder. Sex with Tony was… It was pushing and pulling and friction and _heat_. It was loud and brash and at the same time so piercingly, strikingly intimate, so intense, so unbearably perfect, that Steve found himself thinking how stupid he’d been for almost missing out on this.

“ _Tony_ ,” he groaned when he felt Tony tighten around him even further. Soon enough, they were straining against each other, mouths open and panting desperately for breath, driving each other relentlessly higher and higher. It went on and on and on until Steve thought he might die.

With a scrambling movement, Tony suddenly clung to the rails of the headboard with one hand, arching his upper body as his other hand reached for his leaking cock. And his breath left Steve in a rush when Tony tensed, his muscles tightening around him like a vice. Steve gasped against his face, then he just couldn’t take it anymore. Raising himself to his knees, he pistoned into Tony, all control lost, thrusting in all the way and just that little bit further, his hips twisting at the end of every stroke so that he hit every sweet spot in Tony’s body with every thrust.

A choked up moan left Tony’s lips, followed by a keening sound that was so excruciatingly erotic that Steve came hard without any sort of warning, his sight whitening out for a moment as he felt Tony shudder and groan helplessly against him as he too fell over the edge.

His heart felt as if it was going to stop out of pure, insupportable rapture and when he came back to himself he found Tony completely limp beneath him, still panting into the curve of his shoulder.

They were sweaty and distinctively glued together in the middle, but Steve couldn’t be bothered by any of it, so instead of moving, he wrapped his arms around Tony’s middle, hands on his head, kissing his eyes and then the corner of his gasping mouth.

“That was…” Tony started, licking his dry lips. “…goddamn amazing.”

“ _You’re_ amazing,” Steve breathed and turned his head to look at him. “Never felt so… I think I nearly blacked out.”

Tony chuckled. “Still not sure I haven’t.”

When Tony shifted beneath him, Steve pushed himself up on his elbows, trying to move away.

Tony made a little, rumbling sound of protest. “Want your weight.”

“I’m too heavy.”

“You’re perfect. Stay.”

So he did, fingers brushing over Tony’s flushed cheeks. “That was incredible,” he murmured as he dropped his face on Tony’s shoulder, burrowed there, replete and spent.

“Mm.” Tony pressed his cheek against Steve’s hair and they stayed like that for a moment, just luxuriating in the feel of each other. They did clean up a bit then—or Steve did, as Tony mostly lay there, watching him with lowered eyelids.

“Think I could stay here for a while…” he murmured.

Steve smiled, wrapping his arms around him as he lay down once more. “There’s no electricity.”

“A week,” Tony corrected himself. “I could stay here for a week.”

That had him chuckle, as his fingers drifted along Tony’s back. “And after?” he asked, and for the first time, the question didn’t make his insides clench uncomfortably.

“Well. I got no company to manage,” Tony mused. “Nat and Rhodey are more than willing to put the newbies through the wringer.” He shrugged slightly. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”

The idea was almost too much to really register in his brain.

“You want to quit?” Steve asked, and he already knew that it didn’t really matter what his answer would be. Whatever Tony wanted to do with his life—Steve would be at his side for it.

“I wouldn’t mind quitting… for a while,” Tony said, his voice cautious. He glanced up at Steve. “Do _you_ want to quit?”

A smile stole its way to Steve’s lips, and he saw the same smile reflecting on Tony’s lips before he even managed to answer.

“Still got one or two apocalypses in me I think,” he said, and felt Tony laugh in his arms. “But… quitting for a while… sounds like a good idea.”

“Superheroes on Hiatus,” Tony murmured, his voice sleepy. “We’ll put it on Twitter, let them guess.”

Steve hummed. “Should do it before your battery runs out.”

A beat.

“I hate camping,” Tony said.

“You love it.”

Being the adult he was, Tony stuck his tongue out, but his arms _did_ tighten around Steve, snuggling even closer. “I do love it. Secretly. It must never know.”

Steve smiled as he pressed a kiss against Tony’s forehead. “Secret’s safe with me.”

“I know,” Tony said as his breath slowly evened out.

Steve watched him for a few moments longer, lingering in the knowledge that they had this now—the two of them, together.

As so many things in Steve’s life, it seemed to be an unfathomable coincidence, a string of events that could’ve easily led into a whole other direction. A part of him thought it was sheer luck that they were here now, but as he held Tony in his arms, a much larger part of his heart liked to think that they’d earned this—to be here, to be happy.

To finally have a little bit of peace for themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wohoo! It's done! I always wanted to write a wilderness survival story and I had a blast writing this one. Hope you guys enjoyed it!


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